Google tightening security on the Play Store to fight spam and fraud

Google has an uphill battle to fight against app spammers who seek to game Google’s rankings. They’ve announced several new enhancements employed to protect the Google Play Store from various types of fraud including fraudulent installs, fake reviews, and incentivized ratings.

These practices are against the Google Play Developer Policy, so Google’s advanced steps against manipulation are warranted. The company says a new system can detect fraudulent installs to manipulate an app’s placement in rankings and these installs will be filtered. Google also mentions that developers that engage in these practices will have their apps removed from Google Play altogether.

For the most part, Google’s systems are automated and it says developers who aren’t engaging in these fraudulent practices have nothing to worry about. However, if you are an app developer and you use a third-party marketing service to help bring more awareness to your apps, Google recommends you make sure they’re following the Google Play Developer Policy to a tee to avoid being affected by these new efforts to combat rank manipulation.