Banned iPhone Developer Molinker Sneaking back to the App Store?

Monday, December 21, 2009

One of the big story this month is Apple’s removal of over 1000 apps developed by the Chinese developer Molinker. They were banned for allegedly writing fake user reviews. The news got a lot media coverage because the banned 1000 apps eliminate nearly 1% of the apps in the App Store.

Molinker’s alleged review fraud is uncovered by Patrick Timney and Glyn Evans of iPhoneography.com. Now, Patrick Timney has once again discovered that those Molinker apps may sneaking their way back to the App Store by publishing it under another name, Shining Works.

Patrick was looking at an app call R&B. When he decided to check out the developer’s website, he found that its header clearly displayed Molinker logo. It has Molinker copyright phrases at its footer too. Molinker probably forgot to tell the web designer to modify their new Shining Works website. Patrick also checked out the site’s domain registration info. As expected, the site has Mark Ma, the same registrant as Molinker’s website, as the registrant.

Looking at the App Store, Timney found 23 apps developed by Shining Works. Shining Works has some firework apps. But the newly released apps seemed to be those familiar photo apps.

Glyn Evans has emailed Phil Schiller, the person in charge of the App Store with these information. So far, there has been no comment yet from Apple. The ball is now in Apple’s court. Will Apple ban Shining Works? Or will they let them come back under a different name?

Via iPhoneography

This is a app store news story by The Apps Machine