iOS Developer Who Drew Attention To App Store Scams is Now Suing Apple

Mobile app developer Kosta Eleftheriou, who publicly called out Apple earlier this year for negligence with regard to policing iOS scams and copycat apps on the App Store, has filed a lawsuit against the iPhone maker in California. From a report: He's accusing the company of exploiting its monopoly power over iOS apps "to make billions of dollars in profits at the expense of small application developers and consumers." Eleftheriou's company KPAW LLC, which he co-owns with his partner Ashley Eleftheriou, filed its complaint in Santa Clara County on Wednesday. It details the development and release timeline of Eleftheriou's Apple Watch keyboard app FlickType. At the time he began accusing Apple of abetting App Store scams early last month, Eleftheriou revealed that his FlickType app had been targeted by competing software he says either didn't work well or didn't work at all, and yet nonetheless chipped away at this sales and App Store rankings through false advertising and the purchase of fake reviews. After he complained, he said Apple did not do enough to combat the scams, though Apple did later remove some of the apps he called attention to.

Interesting

[Sebby]

Interesting how he apparently started getting the the cold shoulder from Apple right when he ended up not selling them his app.

Re: Interesting

[spinitch]

If Apple is not following its terms of service that upstanding Apps follow at a cost, and Apple unresponsive since peanuts for them, suing is unfortunately a remedy to try. There should be a fair play field. Apple still the more controlled garden so they should consider how to accommodate quality concerns. Though it is also hard to differentiate what often is obvious same functionality that could be duplicated. Translation apps , calculators etc.. Keyboards? This is good for other App developers to watch ;)

Bad and worse

[MrL0G1C]

None of the big market places are good at retro-actively or pro-actively policing their sales or ads. Ebay and Amazon sell fake video cards and memory sticks and no doubt a lot more.

Facebook is the worst, they host endless scam adverts and do very little about them, they are very much aiding and abetting crime and they have the temerity to say it is nothing to do with them. For example an anti-scam youtuber reported dozens of scam adverts but Facebook only ever removed the ads a small percentage of the time. Amazon rainforest is taken illegally and violently from indigenous peoples, the plots are sold on Facebook who steadfastly refuse to remove the ads - can you get any worse?

I reported several scammer youtube channels to youtube, they never removed the videos.

All these companies are clearly quite happy to continue allowing bad actors to use their platforms because they are making money and nothing is being done about them turning a blind eye.

How often have you seen scam ads that claim you have a problem with your PC they want to help you fix? Why are the advertisers not in Jail?

Re:

[Sebby]

What it will take is fines that are 10X the price of the advertized value (not the price of the ad itself, but the price of what's being sold in the fraudulent ad) being imposed to those companies for each violation. Then they'll start taking action.

Funny how 'traditional media' is basically mandated to vet the ads they run, but somehow tech companies have decided that they should be immune from this because they couldn't possibly handle the volume, all while generating record revenue and profits.

Re:

[phantomfive]

If you're going to make a walled garden to keep people safe from scammers, you better do a good job keeping scammers out.

Re:

[Bodie1]

Yes, and if you're going to build one to keep the money in, you just charge the scammers the same fees as everyone else.