Is Shopify actually addressing the fake review problem?

Shopify App Store
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Speaking of this problem Partner, after they were called out publicly on X, the obvious “Leave a 5 Star Review, Use App for FREE Forever :tada:” banner appeared to be removed.

Their review pattern then seemed to almost completely flatten out for a few weeks. After that, the reviews started picking up again, which is what made me look a bit closer.

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I found what appeared to be a very clear incentivised-review flow in their apps. The app’s frontend code appeared to contain a carefully gated remake of the “free access in exchange for a five-star review” banner.

The condition I found was:

const C = !b && !S && (w === "Basic" || w === "Grow");

From the surrounding code, C was then used to decide whether the review incentive banner should render. In other words, the banner appeared to be shown only when the store was not a development store, not a collaborator account, and was on the Basic or Grow Shopify plan. That would, of course, hide the flow from development stores, collaborator accounts, and Shopify staff/review accounts, as those would not be on the Basic or Grow merchant plans.

The banner text itself was visible in the served JavaScript bundle:

children: c.jsx(V, {
    variant: "headingLg",
    as: "h2",
    children: "Leave a 5 Star Review, Use App for FREE Forever 🎉"
})

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I also tested it on a real store and saw the banner actively displayed to merchants, including artificial urgency.

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I reported this to Shopify with the evidence I had. Since then, the Partner appears to have removed the code, but no visible action seems to have been taken against the developer.

This is potentially one of the worst examples I have come across so far, because it was not just a bad prompt or a poorly worded review request. It appeared to include active code-gating designed to hide the behaviour from Shopify staff checks and from other developers investigating it.

If the end result is simply “they removed it after being reported” with no meaningful enforcement, then the incentive for bad actors is obvious: run the scheme, collect the reviews, remove the code if caught, and keep the benefit.

That is exactly why this keeps happening.

@Paige-Shopify - Can we get Shopify’s view on this? This is a repeat offender who has been called out previously, changed their behaviour, and then appears to have come back with more sophisticated techniques designed to obscure the issue from Shopify and other developers. From the outside, it looks like all my report achieved was getting them to remove the code. Has any meaningful action actually been taken? Honestly, I can see why some developers decide not to take the honest route when this appears to be the outcome.

@malisauskasLT - You might find this one interesting - its the same partner from your initial tweet.