Check out this photo that shows how Chinese workers are used to manipulate App Store rankings. The photo has apparently gone viral in China.
Huxiu reports that the photo was shared by a micro-blog today under the heading, "It's Hard Being a Top App Worker." The image shows a worker siting in front of hundreds of iPhones laid out on a rack that appears to have been specially designed for this purpose.
The exposé, shown in the picture, displays a 'Top App list worker' in their work place, which features a simple shelf containing hundreds of iPhone 5Cs. In a room filled with such workstations from one side to the other, mobile phone labour takes place at an industrial level. Simply put, a worker downloads (and deletes and downloads, etc.) an app to boost its rank on the App Store, calculated by how many times the app has been downloaded. One worker can operate as up to 100 unique users.
Accompany the photo on some sites is an alleged price list for boosting your app ranking. Getting into the top 10 free apps costs RMB 70,000 (US$11,200), and keeping it there will cost you another RMB 405,000 (US$65,000) per week. The third column is said to be the monthly fee. Negotiations take place over the QQ messaging service.
While Apple has taken steps to counter the manipulation of App Store rankings, it's quite difficult to identify manual downloads as being fake.
Take a look at the photo below...
Read More [via TechInAsia] [via CultofMac]
Huxiu reports that the photo was shared by a micro-blog today under the heading, "It's Hard Being a Top App Worker." The image shows a worker siting in front of hundreds of iPhones laid out on a rack that appears to have been specially designed for this purpose.
The exposé, shown in the picture, displays a 'Top App list worker' in their work place, which features a simple shelf containing hundreds of iPhone 5Cs. In a room filled with such workstations from one side to the other, mobile phone labour takes place at an industrial level. Simply put, a worker downloads (and deletes and downloads, etc.) an app to boost its rank on the App Store, calculated by how many times the app has been downloaded. One worker can operate as up to 100 unique users.
Accompany the photo on some sites is an alleged price list for boosting your app ranking. Getting into the top 10 free apps costs RMB 70,000 (US$11,200), and keeping it there will cost you another RMB 405,000 (US$65,000) per week. The third column is said to be the monthly fee. Negotiations take place over the QQ messaging service.
While Apple has taken steps to counter the manipulation of App Store rankings, it's quite difficult to identify manual downloads as being fake.
Take a look at the photo below...
Read More [via TechInAsia] [via CultofMac]