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posted by Fnord666 on Monday April 27 2020, @12:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the app-network dept.

Google has reportedly removed more than 100 apps:

Google has reportedly removed more than 100 apps with tens of millions of downloads after allegations the apps were part of a co-ordinated group that may have violated store policies.

The group allegedly involves at least 27 separate app developers (that could also be pseudonyms), according to tech outlet CyberNews.

The outlet alleges the apps were made (and often ripped off from other developers, including some in the alleged network) to generate ad revenue.

Most of the apps are simple ones focusing on things like scanning PDFs and making photo collages, likely deliberately chosen because they provide sought after services people want quickly and are likely to download them without thinking too hard about it.

The research alleges the group's apps were downloaded 69 million times and could have been generating $US10,000 a month, or even up to $US1 million, though they say it's likely to be on the lower end of that spectrum.

But the apps don't appear to require much work to make and publish on the Google Play Store, which is what initially raised the suspicions of the researchers, after discovering links between different developers.

The app developers mostly have a first name-last name style developer name usually featuring Western-style names, which might seem like a tenuous link at first, but it goes deeper.

[...] The research doesn't conclusively reveal where the network is based, but all the evidence seems to point towards Asia, with Vietnamese postcodes on some developer pages, and references to Chinese telecoms in the code of some actual apps.


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2020, @02:27PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2020, @02:27PM (#987532)

    I've noticed that it seems people do not know how currency signs are supposed to be used, and I don't know why that is. With very little exceptions, you simply put the currency sign in front of the amount: fifty dollars isn't 50$, it is $50. And if there is ambiguity in the units, like if several countries use "dollars" for instance, then you put the country designation in the front of the currency sign: US$50.

    Why have people forgotten how to do this? Is this because anyone born in the last 30 years has never had to go out to a store and purchase something with their own money? And don't tell me that they do it the other way in Europe. Only the French do that, and they do it for the same reason they do everything differently, to show that they are different.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by meustrus on Monday April 27 2020, @02:33PM

    by meustrus (4961) on Monday April 27 2020, @02:33PM (#987534)

    How to use currency symbols is highly locale-dependent. I don't know what the standards are in Australia, but that's where this article is from, so you shouldn't be surprised if details like this are different than you're used to.

    --
    If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2020, @03:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2020, @03:48PM (#987548)

    > Only the French do that, and they do it for the same reason they do everything differently, to show that they are different.

    Another example, a student in Japan was attempting to send me (in USA) postal mail...but it kept coming back to him, at least two times. I finally asked him to send me a photo of the envelope.

    You guessed it -- he had my USA address in the upper left corner of the envelope (USA location for return address) and his own address in the center of the envelope.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2020, @04:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2020, @04:05PM (#987552)

    Why doesn't the world conform to my comfortable expecations!?! WArgLblRgL

    Have you heard the word from our Great Lord and Savior Metricula?

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Monday April 27 2020, @06:51PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 27 2020, @06:51PM (#987596) Journal

    I've noticed that it seems people do not know how currency signs are supposed to be used

    It's rather simple, really.

    With very little exceptions

    It is a parse error not an exception.

    you simply put the currency sign in front of the amount

    No. You're wrong.

    If it were an amount, you do not use a dollar sign. It is only correct to use the dollar sign for a string not a numeric value.

    10 LET NumTimes = 10 : REM no dollar sign
    20 LET Message$ = "Hello World"
    30 FOR I = 1 TO NumTimes
    40 PRINT Message$
    50 GOSUB 30
    60 NEXT I
    70 PROFIT
    80 END

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Monday April 27 2020, @06:51PM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Monday April 27 2020, @06:51PM (#987597) Homepage

    Currency signs are units so they should come after the number like all other units.

    12 m
    12 J
    12 m/s
    12 $/s
    12 USD/s

    --
    Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by mmh on Monday April 27 2020, @09:25PM (2 children)

    by mmh (721) on Monday April 27 2020, @09:25PM (#987627)

    As always, there is an XKCD for everything in life: https://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com]

     

    Many publications go by the AP Style, here's what they have to say:

    If you need to write specific non-U.S. dollars, use a numeral followed by the full currency name for the first reference, and then use the country’s two-letter abbreviation before the dollar sign for secondary references:

    The teenager thought CA$60 for jeans was too expensive.

    But if you use the Interinstitutional Style, well:

    The same rule applies in Dutch, Irish and Maltese. In all other official EU languages the order is reversed; the amount is followed by a hard space and the euro sign:

    une somme de 30 €

     

    Source: https://erinwrightwriting.com/write-non-u-s-dollars-words-symbols/ [erinwrightwriting.com]
    Source: https://publications.europa.eu/code/en/en-370303.htm [europa.eu]

    Have your mind blown by the sheer number of standards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_style_guides [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday April 28 2020, @01:47AM (1 child)

      by Magic Oddball (3847) on Tuesday April 28 2020, @01:47AM (#987688) Journal

      That doesn't really explain why young people who have spent their entire lives in the US are be so prone to placing the dollar sign in the wrong place; they're not following a standard, just making a mistake.

      My theory is that it's just one of the many things that weren't required of them as kids; many of them also mangle English in the same ways that an ESL student learning primarily from watching television shows might.

      • (Score: 2) by mmh on Wednesday April 29 2020, @05:03PM

        by mmh (721) on Wednesday April 29 2020, @05:03PM (#988244)

        My point was, what you are calling a "mistake" is not.

        The "correct" way of placing a dollar sign is defined by a style guide, there are many style guides to choose from. Some say $15 is correct, others say it is 15$.

        It's kind of like phone numbers, according to the NANP all phone numbers should be formatted 800-555-1234, but if you've ever seen a business card, you've seen: 1-800-555-1234, 1 (800) 555 1234, (800)-555-1234, etc... None of those are "incorrect", though you may not like them.

        Just because you prefer $15 does not make it correct, and the only time calling someone out on it makes sense is if you're part of an organization that dictates a specific style.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 28 2020, @12:47AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 28 2020, @12:47AM (#987676) Journal
    I wouldn't worry so much about where they're placing the dollar signs. Worry instead about their inability to keep it.