New Play Store measures better combat fraud and spam install manipulation

After Apple dealt with a high-profile case of fradulent reviews in its App Store earlier this month, Google is announcing its own new measures to fight manipulation in the Play Store. An improved detection and filtering systems for fraud and spam installs is going live today.

Google notes instances of developers attempting to manipulate the placement and ranking of their apps through illegitimate means like fraudulent installs, fake reviews, and incentivized ratings. This prevents the Play Store’s discovery system from surfacing good developer and tricks users into downloading apps based on inaccurate and inauthentic information.

Starting today, the Play Store is rolling out improved detection and filtering systems to deal with fraud and spam installs. Specifically, these kind of installs intend to manipulate an app’s ranking. Google will now detect and filter these instances out of metrics that provide recommendations.

As such practices break Google Play policies, developers who continue to exhibit such behavior are at risk of having their apps taken down from the store.

Google notes that in the vast majority of cases, no action will be needed on the part of honest developers. However, they do recommend getting in touch with third-party marketing agencies to insure that promotions are based on legitimate practices.