Apple today reported that its App Store prevented an estimated $2 billion in “potentially fraudulent transactions” during 2022. The Apple Newsroom article highlighted the security benefits of the App Store, as well as Apple Pay.
Apple terminated 428,000 developer accounts and 282 million customer accounts for fraud and abuse last year. It also rejected nearly 1.7 million app submissions for failing to meet the App Store’s high standards for “privacy, security, and content.” Of those 1.7 million apps, 400,000 were rejected for privacy violations, 153,000 were rejected for spam, copying an existing app, or misleading users, and 29,000 were rejected for the inclusion of hidden or undocumented features.
Nearly 3.9 million stolen credit cards were prevented from being used to make fraudulent purchases within apps, while 714,000 accounts were banned from any additional transactions. Apple deactivated 282 million fraudulent customer accounts and blocked another 198 million before they were created.
In 2021, Apple terminated over 802,000 developer accounts for potentially fraudulent activity. In 2022, that number fell to 428,000 due to new methods and protocols allowing the App Store to prevent the creation of potentially fraudulent accounts. Additionally, nearly 105 million Apple Developer Program enrollments were rejected for suspected fraudulent activities, preventing these bad guys from submitting apps to the App Store.
Apple has commissioned several App Store studies like these in the face of growing pressure from various directions to open up the iOS and iPadOS operating systems to allow app sideloading and the use of third-party app stores. Apple is widely expected to allow European users to install apps from outside of the App Store as of the release of iOS 17 this fall, thanks to new requirements from the European Union.
Meanwhile, United States government officials are mulling legislation that would let developers offer their apps in third-party app stores and offer alternative in-app payment systems on iOS devices. Apple has financed studies like these from Analysis Group, as these studies can be used to sway regulators and the public to Apple’s way of thinking.
