Technology

Amazon asked Apple to remove an app that spots fake reviews, and Apple agreed

Published

4 years ago

July 17, 2021

admin

In this article

AAPL
AMZN

The Amazon shopping app in the Google Play Store on an Android smartphone.

Christoph Dernbach | picture alliance | Getty Images

Apple has removed Fakespot, a well-known app for detecting fake product reviews, from its App Store after Amazon complained the app provided misleading information and potential security risks.

Fakespot’s app works by analyzing the credibility of an Amazon listing’s reviews and gives it a grade of A through F. It then provides shoppers with recommendations for products with high customer satisfaction.

Amazon said it reported Fakespot to Apple for investigation after it grew concerned that a redesigned version of the app confused consumers by displaying Amazon’s website in the app with Fakespot code and content overlaid on top of it. Amazon said it doesn’t allow applications to do this. An Amazon spokesperson claimed, “The app in question provides customers with misleading information about our sellers and their products, harms our sellers’ businesses, and creates potential security risks.”

By Friday afternoon, following a review from Apple, the app was no longer available on the App Store.

Misleading or fake user reviews have proven to be a major problem for online retailers, including Amazon. The company has recently ramped up its efforts to detect and cull fake reviews. Its third-party marketplace, made up of millions of sellers, has grown to account for more than half of the company’s overall sales, but it has become fertile ground for fake reviews, counterfeits and unsafe products. Regulators in the U.S. and abroad have taken steps to curb fake reviews on and off Amazon.

As fake reviews continue to proliferate the internet, third-party apps and websites have sprung up to help shoppers spot them, such as Fakespot, ReviewMeta and ReconBob.

Amazon reported well-known fake review detector app Fakespot to Apple for investigation, triggering its removal from the App Store.

Amazon

It’s unclear why Apple removed Fakespot from its App Store, and Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

But Amazon pointed CNBC to two subsections of Apple’s App Store guidelines that Fakespot may have violated. One guideline states that apps must make sure they’re permitted to use, access, monetize access to or display content from a third-party service. Another guideline states that apps should not include false information and features.

Amazon also claims Fakespot’s coding technique makes it possible for the app to collect and track information from customers. The company last January made similar claims against PayPal-owned Honey, a browser extension that lets users find coupons while shopping online, warning users it could be a “security risk.”

Fakespot: ‘They’ve shown zero proof’

In an interview, Fakespot founder and CEO Saoud Khalifah said he disputed Amazon’s claim that the app presents security risks and said that while Fakespot does collect some user data, it doesn’t sell it to third parties.

Khalifah added that many apps use the same coding technique, called “wrapping,” to include a web browser view, such as coupon providers. He said many apps and websites also collect and track user information, including Amazon.

“We don’t steal users’ information, we’ve never done that,” Khalifah said. “They’ve shown zero proof and Apple acted on this with zero proof.”

Fakespot released a new version of its app at the end of May. Amazon reported the app to Apple in mid-June, Khalifah said.

Khalifah said he was upset that Apple didn’t give Fakespot adequate warning that the app would be taken down from the App Store, or the ability to rectify issues with the app.

“Imagine going to a tenant and saying you have to take all your stuff, you have to leave right now. That’s how I feel right now, to be quite honest with you,” he added.

Fakespot’s app is still available on the Google Play Store for Android devices as of Friday evening.

Technology

We’re raising our Corning price target after a shortsighted post-earnings decline

Published

4 hours ago

October 28, 2025

admin

We're raising our Corning price target after a shortsighted post-earnings decline

Technology

Can AI create next ‘Grand Theft Auto’? Take-Two Interactive CEO says no

Published

4 hours ago

October 28, 2025

admin

Can AI create next 'Grand Theft Auto'? Take-Two Interactive CEO says no

Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of video game publisher Take-Two Interactive, said he is not a “naysayer” when it comes to the promise of artificial intelligence. But at the same time, Zelnick, who leads the company that publishes the “Grand Theft Auto,” “NBA 2K,” “Red Dead” and “Borderlands” video game series, said the signs that the technology is having an impact on game development and production are “still limited.”

That’s for two reasons, Zelnick told a room of technology executives at CNBC’s Technology Executive Council Summit in New York on Tuesday.

The first reason — which is increasingly placing AI companies at odds with Hollywood, musicians and other creative industries — is intellectual property.

“We have to protect our intellectual property, but more than that, we have to be mindful of others,” Strauss told CNBC’s Steve Kovach in an interview at the CNBC event. “If you create intellectual property with AI, it’s not protectable.”

The data-rights clash between content owners and the AI industry has resulted in a string of licensing deals, lawsuits and ongoing criticism as AI companies continue to seek out more data sets to train their large language models.

However, the debate took another twist upon the release of OpenAI’s video creation app Sora last month, which allows users to generate near-realistic, short-form AI videos through prompts. That has opened the door for a new set of concerns around deepfakes and the usage of the voice and likenesses of not only famous actors, musicians and animated characters, but also any person.

Strauss said that when it comes to AI usage at game publishers like Take-Two, it’s not only important that the created content stands up to copyright laws but also protects people’s rights. “There are constraints,” he said.

But perhaps the bigger hurdle when it comes to utilizing more AI in game production is one at the center of what he believes is why the company continues to be successful.

“Let’s say there were no constraints [on AI]. Could we push a button tomorrow and create an equivalent to the ‘Grand Theft Auto’ marketing plan?” he said. “The answer is no. A, you can’t do that yet, and B, I am of the view that you wouldn’t end up with anything very good. You end up with something pretty derivative.”

Strauss said that is due to AI inherently being “backward looking” because its computation is tied to big data sets of old information.

Often, he said, what AI produces can feel new because it’s using predictive models, “and there are many, many, many things in life that are predictable based on data,” and there are plenty of things that data can solve for.

While that may help with solving something as complex as a cure for a disease or as simple as biology homework, Strauss said that when it comes to creating the sorts of multi-layered universes that Take-Two’s video games have become known for, it’s another story.

“Anything that involves backward-looking data compute, it’s really good for that and that applies to lots of things,” he said. “What we do at Take-Two, anything that isn’t attached to that, it’s going to be really, really bad at.”

Maintaining that creative edge has been critical for Take-Two, one of the last standing public video game developers after Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard for $69 billion in 2023 and Electronic Arts announced last month that it will be acquired by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners in an all-cash deal worth $55 billion.

“We aim to create franchises that are permanent,” Strauss said, noting that Take-Two has 11 franchises that have sold at least five million games upon release, in addition to more than 20 popular mobile games.

The company’s biggest franchise, “Grand Theft Auto,” is set to launch its next iteration in May 2026 and will likely set new sales records. Strauss said that the previous game in the series, “Grand Theft Auto V,” had $1 billion in sales in the first three days of its launch in 2013.

“The team’s creativity is extraordinary, and what [Take-Two subsidiary] Rockstar Games tries to do, and so far has done over and over again, is create something that approaches perfection,” he said. “There is no creativity that can exist by definition in any AI model, because it is data-driven,” Strauss added.

Technology

Jensen Huang says Nvidia’s AI chips are now being manufactured in Arizona

Published

6 hours ago

October 28, 2025

admin

Jensen Huang says Nvidia's AI chips are now being manufactured in Arizona

Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., speaks to members of the media prior to the keynote address at the Nvidia AI summit in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025.

Kent Nishimura | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at the company’s GTC conference on Tuesday that its Blackwell graphics processing units — the company’s fastest AI chips — are now in full production in Arizona.

Previously, Nvidia’s fastest GPUs were solely manufactured in Taiwan.

Huang said that President Donald Trump had asked him nine months ago to bring manufacturing back to U.S. shores.

“The first thing that President Trump asked me for is bring manufacturing back,” Huang said. “Bring manufacturing back because it’s necessary for national security. Bring manufacturing back because we want the jobs. We want that part of the economy.”

Earlier this month, Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company announced that the first Blackwell wafers had been produced in a facility in Phoenix, Arizona. Wafers are the base material on which semiconductors are etched onto.

Nvidia said in a video that Blackwell-based systems will now be assembled in the U.S., too.

Much of what the company announced on Tuesday at its conference in Washington was for an audience of policymakers to convince them of the essential role that Nvidia plays, and that it would hurt U.S. interests to restrict its exports.

Huang said on Tuesday on a panel before his speech that Nvidia was holding its conference in Washington to allow Trump to attend, according to CNBC’s Kristina Partsinevelos, but the president is currently on a trip in Asia.

Trump said on Tuesday that he planned to meet with Huang on Wednesday, according to a Reuters report.

Demand for the company’s GPUs remains high, with 6 million Blackwell GPUs shipped in the last four quarters, Huang said Tuesday. Nvidia expects $500 billion in GPU sales between the Blackwell generation and next year’s Rubin chips combined, he added.

Cell networks ‘built on foreign technologies’

Additionally, Huang Tuesday said Nvidia would partner with Finland-based Nokia to build gear for telecommunications, an industry that he said was worth $3 trillion. As part of the partnership, Nvidia will take a $1 billion stake in Nokia.

Huang said that Nvidia is building chips for 5G and 6G base stations because it’s important to have wireless networks based on American technology.

“Thank you for helping the United States bring telecommunication technology back to America,” Huang said to Nokia CEO Justin Hotard during his speech.

The deal is an appeal to Western policymakers who have long had concerns about the amount of technology from China’s Huawei that is used for cellular networks around the world.

“Our fundamental communication fabric is built on foreign technologies,” Huang said. “That has to stop, and we have an opportunity to do that, especially during this fundamental platform shift.”

Nokia will use Nvidia chips in its future base stations, which are the pricey computers that distribute cellular signals. Huawei gear, the market leader, was effectively banned in the U.S. in 2018, leaving Nokia and Ericcson as the primary equipment vendors for U.S. networks.

Huang said that Nokia would be using a new product called Nvidia ARC that combines its Grace GPU, a Blackwell GPU and the company’s networking parts. Huang said that AI delivered over next-generation 6G networks could help operate robots and deliver more accurate weather forecasts.

Stakes are high

The location of the conference carries significance as Nvidia makes the case that it is a core part of the “U.S technology stack.”

Huang has argued that it would be better for American interests if Chinese AI developers got used to U.S. technology like Nvidia’s chips, rather than forcing the Chinese to develop their own AI chips.

“Nvidia is a proud American company building the U.S. AI infrastructure that will ensure our country leads the world in shaping the future of innovation,” Kari Briski, Nvidia’s vice president of generative AI software for enterprise, told reporters on a Monday call.

The stakes are high for Nvidia. U.S. export restrictions have already cost Nvidia billions of dollars in lost sales.

In April, the U.S. government informed Nvidia that its H20 chip, which was specially designed to comply with U.S. export controls, would require a license to ship to China. In May, Nvidia said it would have recorded about $10.5 billion in H20 sales over two quarters if the government hadn’t made the license requirement.

Then, in July, Huang visited Trump in Washington and again tried to persuade him and other administration officials that it is in U.S. interests to ship Nvidia chips to China. The Trump administration said it would approve license requests for the H20, but that Nvidia would have to pay the U.S. government 15% of China sales.

Still, Nvidia’s China business isn’t yet back on track.

Earlier this month, Huang said at a financial conference that Nvidia is currently “100% out of China” and has no market share there. While Nvidia said it would receive licenses for the H20 chip, the company hasn’t revealed a newer chip for China based on the company’s current generation of Blackwell GPUs.

Quantum computing

Many of Nvidia’s announcements on Tuesday were partnerships intended to signal that the company works with a variety of U.S. companies.

Among those announcements was NVQLink, a new way to connect quantum chips to Nvidia’s GPUs.

The U.S. having a lead in quantum computing is important to policymakers because military officials are worried that a foreign adversary may be able to spy on military communications if it gets a working quantum computer first.

Nvidia officials said in a Monday call that its chips can be used to correct errors that pop up during quantum computing and advance the technology. Nvidia said that 17 different quantum computing startups would produce hardware compatible with NVQLink.

“Researchers will be able to do more than just error correction,” Huang said Tuesday. “They will also be able to orchestrate quantum devices and AI supercomputers to run quantum GPU applications.”