Users have long been complaining about fake apps that plague the App Store. These apps pretend to serve a specific purpose but would require users to pay a high price in exchange of their service. Unfortunately, these are all part of a scam that aims to drain people of their hard-earned money. With the rise of AI-powered tools, scammers have shifted their focus to creating fake ChatGPT-like apps.
ChatGPT-Lookalike Apps Flock the Mac App Store
A Medium report from Privacy 1st researcher Alex Kleber on the "Dark Side of the Mac App Store" revealed that the Mac App Store has seen an increase of multiple identical apps pretending to offer the same services as ChatGPT. Kleber's report is the result of a month-long investigation into fraudulent actors preying on App Store users for many years.
Kleber made the report in response to the noticeable increase in the number of ChatGPT-lookalike apps, which were all developed by the same developers. According to Kleber, "shady" developers have created a bunch of fake ChatGPT apps and put them up in the Mac App Store, thinking that many users would be fooled into thinking that they are installing the real ChatGPT.
The bad actors made the fake ChatGPT apps searchable using the keywords such as "OpenAI" and "ChatGPT." Therefore, users searching for these keywords would see multiple ChatGPT-lookalike apps in the results. The worst part of this fraudulent activity is that the bad actors used similar colors, icons and logos of OpenAI and ChatGPT for their dummy apps, making it clear that these entities have the intention of fooling the public.
Users who chose to install the fake ChatGPT apps would later find out that these do not have the same functionalities as an actual AI model. Unfortunately, they already purchased the fake apps before realizing that they have been scammed, as per MacRumors. In this case, it is not only the users that are affected by the scammers but also the legitimate developers because the App Store being flooded by fake apps prevents the growth of the app ecosystem.
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Apple's Role in Preventing Fake Apps from Flocking the App Store
Kleber noted in his report that Apple plays an important role in regulating the apps on the platform. Unfortunately, the Cupertino tech giant has been easy with the fake apps, possibly due to a lenient App Review process.
He also mentioned several apps approved by the App Review team on Friday that use the same fake OpenAI logo and colors. There are cases when two apps look almost the same but with minor differences so the other app would not appear as a direct clone. Approving multiple apps that look very similar is a sign that Apple needs to improve its app regulation system.
Kleber also pointed out that the paywalls for the fake ChatGPT apps are all the same. The developers did not provide a close button to the paywall.
"This behavior of not providing a close button to the paywalls is highly unethical and can be considered a scam," Kleber said. He added that the people behind the fake apps are part of a "larger operation aimed at exploiting the popularity of ChatGPT."
"It's alarming to think that such sophisticated and well-coordinated scams can be perpetuated on the MacOS App Store with little to no oversight," Kleber added.
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