Apple has frequently cited insecure and scam apps as justification for wanting all iPhone apps to be sold exclusively in the company’s own App Store.

Numerous reports, however, have found that there is no shortage of scam apps making it through Apple’s app review process, and the company is now under fresh legal scrutiny in the EU over this issue …

The App Store controversy

Apple has come under legal fire in a number of countries around the world for its monopolistic control of the sale of iPhone apps. It has been forced to permit third-party app stores within the EU, and to loosen some of its controls within the US.

The company has often argued that its tight control of the App Store is the only way to ensure that iPhones are safe from scam apps and the like. However, that argument is weakened by the sheer number of fraudulent apps that have made it into the store.

A study back in 2021 revealed that scam apps make up almost 2% of the top-grossing apps in this store, and the company recently accepted into the App Store a dating app found to have exposed the private chats and personal data of tens of thousands of women.

Apple under legal scrutiny over scam apps

The Financial Times reports that the EU is now set to investigate whether Apple and three other tech giants are taking sufficient steps to protect consumers against scam apps and other forms of financial fraud.

The EU is set to scrutinise if Apple, Google and Microsoft are failing to adequately police financial fraud online, as it steps up efforts to police how Big Tech operates online […]

EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen [said the bloc] will scrutinise how Apple and Google are handling fake applications in their app stores, such as fake banking apps.

The commission will also look at whether Google and Microsoft do enough to guard against scam results in their search engines, and Booking.com is in the line of fire for allowing fake accommodation listings. Many holidaymakers have turned up to apartments to find that they either don’t exist or have genuine owners who know nothing about their supposed booking.

The EU has recently been focusing on child protection and election integrity issues, and tackling financial scams is now said to be the latest priority.

Should any of the companies be found to be failing in their legal obligations to block illegal content, they could face fines of up to 6% of their annual global turnover.

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Photo by Eugene Chystiakov on Unsplash