By 
The US Department of Justice announced today that they have seized several domains associated with the illegal distribution of pirated apps for Android smartphones. The three sites named were applanet.net, appbucket.net, and snappzmarket.com. The action is being touted as the first of its kind against the ever-growing black market for smartphone apps and games.
In a statement released this morning, Lanny A Breur of the Justice Department’s criminal division recognized that “apps have become an increasingly essential part of our nation’s economy and creative culture,” and said the goal is to “protect the creators of these apps and other forms of intellectual property.” With the seizures, the sites in question ceased operation immediately and have had control handed over to the DoJ.
[via DroidDog]
I am an Android user, and I approve this move.
“quit breaking the law a**hole” bahaha jk but for real support the devs
As always, this is just whack-a-mole. The k00l l1ttl3 k1dd1es want their free schtuff because only “idiots” pay for $1 for software.
usually I pirate to twstban app for more than 15 minutes. if I like it, I buy it. the only app I pirated and kept without buying is XPlane, and that’s only because they make you pay again for the cool planes after buying the app.
So have you ever modeled and textured an aircraft & cockpit in 3D, and then added an accurate physics profile to it, and audio for engines, etc? …
Didn’t think so.
no. but I paid $5 for it on iPad and it came with all the planes. so I pirated it on Android and bought 6+ planes.
I don’t entirely fault him for the xplane thing because on their iPhone app they give you everything after you buy it. But For their android app after you buy the game out right they want you to individually buy each plane and map location. That’s BS why the double standard. That seems to be a constant with a lot of these iPhone ports. I bought this game just like i buy all of my games but because of the in app purchase thing I kinda wish I pirated it.
Wack-a-mole or not, it needs to be done. Most developers are very small businesses, and they need to live.
such good timing, with the new gift cards coming out soon.
lol there are million of sites out there and google is one of them lolz
Huzzah! Hopefully more devs will want to develop for Android. That is, if they keep shutting down app piracy related sites.
Seems like all the Installous sites lol.
I have use these sites to “Test Drive” an app, but I do purchase the apps I plan on keeping to support the dev.
I support this!
I was trying to use applanet last night on my Google TV to see what apps I can use on it without needing to go through the process of downloading an app to my phone, backup it up, upload to Google Drive, and lose more space. Apps and indie bands/movies are the only things I won’t pirate.
Thank you for your confession, an agent will be at your door shortly
It’s about time. I for one am tired of getting daily google alerts notifying me that one or more of my apps has been pirated and is available on yet another site. I am confident that my paid app has 10X more pirate users than paid users.
Most mainstream music and movies are overpriced but mobile apps are so cheap that they don’t deserve to be pirated. Come on.. just pay the $2 !!!