[Cheetah26]

Learned that App Store does this too during a recent MFA rollout.

What really surprised me was that when instructed to install Google Authenticator, a significant portion of people (I'd estimate close to 50%) would search the exact name and then proceed to reach to install the sponsored top result with a completely different name until I stopped them.

[alasdairking]

Absolutely this. It is so disappointing that the big tech companies provide ANOTHER opportunity for less-skilled users to make a mistake.

And a mistake that might hurt them with security and certainly cost and functionality.

And in a core, security-sensitive function like "what third party apps should I have on my personal device?" This is not searching for fun memes on Reddit!

[spogbiper]

A lot of the MFA apps that Apple allows to appear above the official apps do work, but they have a $10/month subscription fee. The MS Authenticator clones have very similar icons and names

[int_19h]

I rather suspect that this kind of thing constitutes the majority of shovelware on all the app stores, rather than outright malware. The latter gets you quickly ejected, but if your app is technically within the rules, it's just a steady trickle of $$$ from people who install it by mistake or because they just don't know better.

[frbr]

And you can't even point someone to a specific app without the App Store trying hard to redirect their attention to an alternative.