Windows Phone is popular enough for makers of fake apps to target it, but shouldn't it be harder for them to make it into the store?
The desire to get more apps into the Windows Phone app store is understandable, but should Microsoft be working harder when it comes to checking the apps that are submitted? How can it keep both the bar and the numbers high?
For example, last week a Kaspersky anti-virus app for Windows Phone showed up in the Windows Phone Store; curious for a platform that Microsoft is touting as extremely secure. It's hard to think what an anti-virus app could do on a phone OS that's so sandboxed that it wouldn't have access to scan any of the other apps on the device or their files. Even worse, it wasn't really from Kaspersky at all; Kaspersky Mobile, which cost 149 roubles in the Russian store, was a fake that did nothing but display a couple of progress bars.
It's not the only fake I've spotted in there; other apps have included fake Google apps and even an Internet Explorer app. Think about it for a minute: even leaving out the fake security software, the certification process for the Windows Phone Store approved an app calling itself Internet Explorer and using the IE logo. Presumably, the certification team know that's a Microsoft product; they ought to at least recognise the logo. And as they work on the Windows Phone Store, they should know that IE already comes with Windows Phone. So how did that make it through certification?
Read more at: Windows Phone and the battle against fake apps | ZDNet