Microsoft Tightens App Certification Policy to Control Spammers

  

We've heard recent reports that developers were suddenly spamming the Marketplace with dozens of apps at once. This isn't really a security issue, as many were real estate apps that were just created in volume, which had one specific to each state. However others were more nefarious like developer 'eric_rulz' who inflated the Marketplace with 10 identical apps that were completely non-functioning and, as you can see from the screenshots above, were purely designed to spam (he even named one of his apps 'Spam'). Many also believed these apps were the reason the Marketplace accelerated so quickly to 20,000 apps just last week, which would be a black mark on what should have been a triumphant moment for the platform.

In light of these reports, Microsoft has quickly responded via the Windows Phone Developer Blog tonight and has announced they will be tightening their certification process and policy in order to weed out any spammers that are "bulk publishing". First the Marketplace will now be restricting a new limit of 20 app approvals in a day per developer, which may seem like a lot but is still an improvement over the current situation.

To avoid the scenario where bulk publishing crowds out other apps in Marketplace in the future, effective immediately, we are limiting the number of apps any one developer can have certified in a single day to 20.  Developers creating a large number of apps can still submit all of them for certification, but they will be certified at a maximum rate of 20 per day rather than all at once.  This change helps us retain a balance of choice and customer experience by enabling customers to see a broader and more representative assortment of new apps from the developer community when they see “New” apps every day. As with all policies, the limit is subject to change based on the ongoing evolution of Marketplace and input from customers and developers.

Besides just limiting the developers, Microsoft has also decided to remove the offending apps but will also reach out to the guilty users who have been submitting those and they plan to help them:

In addition, we are reaching out to the companies who most recently published a large number of apps with similar functionality in a short period of time. We’re offering to work with these developers to explore how they can better take advantage of the Windows Phone platform to improve the functionality of their apps and reduce the need for large numbers of similar apps. Many of the most recently published bulk apps are being removed from Marketplace while these developers update and republish their apps. We’ve also committed to create and share additional guidance and best practices in the near future to help developers create compelling apps that offer localized or targeted experiences, without having to create dozens of unique apps.

While they were a little slow to the punch, we're impressed that Microsoft is actually willing to bottleneck their app submissions for the foreseeable future, a move we didn't think they would actually take. That alone is a sign that the company really does intend to control the user experience of Windows Phone while also trying to keep it a viable business of developers to pursue. We're also grateful they've decided to take down most of the duplicate and non-functioning apps, which should keep things under control.

Do you think Microsoft is taking enough initiative, or are they still being a bit too loose with these measures? Tell us in the comments below.

Source: Windows Phone Developer Blog