App Store: for a year, this pirate Netflix slipped through the cracks

A pirate applicationnamed “Collect Cards: Store box”has just been removed from theApp Store. This is aillegal video streaming platform, which puts content from Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, Amazon Prime or HBO Max online for free, which normally requires a paid subscription.

Collect Cards: Store box has just been removed from the Apple App Store,although she had been operating for a year without any problem. However, successfully publishing an application on the App Store requires several steps. Applications are supposed to be subject to rigorous scrutiny, so it may seem rather curious that it got there without a problem.

How is this possible?

This isn't just a careless mistake by Apple. In reality, the developers of the pirate app have developed a well-thought-out stratagem to deceive the Apple company.Depending on where the user is located, the App Store page does not displaynot the same screenshots, and the content of the application is not the same.

In the United States, for example, there is nothing to suggest that it is a pirate video streaming service. It looks more like a simple, basic tool for photos and videos. So,Apple employees saw nothing happen. Among the regions that have benefited from “Collect Cards: Store box”, there is Brazil. There, the app was ranked second in the free category.

How did Apple notice this?

If the Apple company was able to discover the existence of this application, it was not on its own initiative. After 9to5mac published an article on the subject, "Collect Cards: Store box" was quickly removed from the App Store.

This isn't the first time a banned app has slipped through Apple's cracks and then managed to get live in the App Store. We remember, for example, a similar stratagem which took place following the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army, even ifthe end goal was different.