What's wrong with this guy? Does he not understand what investigating means? God forbid Google actually investigates claims of malfeasance.
Google confirmed that these apps were committing ad fraud, and told me that ad fraud is against Play store policy. Yet the company was going to keep the apps in the store. That didn't make sense to me. Fortunately, they reversed their position.
(Also, in case it matters, I didn't submit my story here. But I always appreciate the interesting threads on my ad fraud stories.)
And when I busted a large ad fraud scheme of dozens of apps: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/how-a-ma...
In all cases Google basically said it takes action against specific apps found violating policy. It seems unwilling to take action against a developer as a whole and ban them. I would also add that I suspect the Play store is not equipped to enforce a ban. People can easily create a newco and get back into the store. This is definitely a much larger issue. So I think that among other things these stories show that you can be a clear bad actor and still do business in the Play store.
Yet, those apps are being ranked higher than other honest apps, which are doing business in honest way.
These day, Google is not willing to do the right thing, unless being pressured by press media, or EU.
That's no longer a reliable way of trusting the credibility. There's been many Pulitzer Prize news reporting which have come out to be completely false.