

Spam in the Android Market - archon810
http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/12/23/rant-how-to-piss-everyone-off-by-gaming-the-android-market-yes-i-am-talking-about-you-foresterwoodman/

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rmc
Google has this problem on the web. Sites that duplicate other sites, etc.
Linkfarms, etc. They are very good at weeding them out and getting rid of them
algorithmicly. Why can't they do the same with the android market?

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JoachimSchipper
> They are very good at weeding them out and getting rid of them algorithmicly

Do you disagree with the frequent "Google lists too many (nearly)-useless
sites" posts on HN, or..?

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Groxx
_Can_ there be a way to combat this, short of curation?

The name could be changed, the binary modified, the images and descriptions
trivially tweaked... the closest you could do is block the developers, at
which point they just create new accounts. About the only method I can think
of is to require a bank / card number, and block _that_ internally - and they
can always get new ones.

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guelo
As someone suggested in the comments, a $10 per app charge would probably fix
this.

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Groxx
Not if they make more than $10 per round. There are a _lot_ of marks in the
world, as evidenced by _175+_ submissions. This went unnoticed for how long?
Made them how much money? $10/app would just cut into their profits, it
wouldn't stop it.

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jackvalentine
Yet another reason for someone to come up with a third party, decent, curated,
Android marketplace.

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Xuzz
(And force every legit Android developer to manage their applications,
updates, and support in two places, not even talking about the hassles of
converting purchases between the two stores.)

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nuclear_eclipse
It should be quite straightforward to have a curated "market" that simply
lists a subset of normal Market applications, and simply forwards the user to
the purchase page for the app on the normal market, rather than creating your
own distribution and transaction system.

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benologist
One of my users' games got put on the market by someone else too. I hope
google comes down heavy on the fuckwits doing it.

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wiseleo
I sent it in to TechCrunch.

