Apple to remove 1,474 apps from App Store in 2022 after governments request takedowns

Apple removed 1,474 apps from its App Store in 2022 as requested by various governments, including 1,435 from mainland China and just 14 from India.

According to the company’s ‘2022 App Store Transparency Report’, the Pakistan government requested the removal of 10 apps, while Russia asked for seven apps to be removed for violating various laws of the land.

There were a total of 18,412 appeals to remove the app from various agencies across the world, including 709 from India (again led by China with 5,484). Apple restored 24 apps in India last year following appeals to remove the apps.

As per the report, by 2022, there will be a total of 1,783,232 apps on Apple’s App Store. The tech giant reviewed 6,101,913 app submissions and rejected 1,679,694 last year for violating App Store policies.

App submissions accepted after rejection were 2,53,466 and the total number of apps eventually removed from the App Store in 2022 was 186,195.

This was the first report published as part of the company’s $100 million settlement with App Store developers in 2021.

Category-wise, games (38,883), utilities (20,045) and business (16,997) topped the list of removed apps.

The total number of Apple developers registered on the App Store stood at 36,974,015, while Apple terminated 4,28,487 developer accounts in 2022 for violating its policies.

According to Apple, “Since its launch in 2008, the App Store has proven to be a safe and reliable place to find and download apps.”

Earlier this week, Apple announced that its App Store prevented more than $2.09 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2022, prevented nearly 3.9 million stolen credit cards from being used to make purchases, and 7 ,14,000 accounts were banned from transacting again.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – IANS,