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Google seems to have pushed a massive amount of ai-generated 4 and 5 star reviews to their new "Android Developer Verifier" app
(reddthat.com)
This app is set to stop people from installing apks or using stores and apps not accepted by google ("verification" requires payment of course). The play store listing does not have images, a proper description, and the app cannot be opened.
Screenshots from the play app because google did something custom for this playstore listing which crashes Aurora. It's fixed in the latest fdroid release, but I noticed that too late, so most screenshots are from googles shitty app.
I don't like the direction Google is taking Android. I'm not in favor of this enforced developer registration.
"Seems to" is not the same as "did." With a couple of LLMs and a bit of time others could've dropped these rave reviews as well. It isn't far fetched that it is Google. But from a PR point of view they'd be stupid if it was them. They gain nothing but bad headlines from a stunt like that. So we probably need a bit more proof than some screenshots.
A slightly more rational theory is that one (or a few) of those "pay-per-review" networks is using it as a demo of their services.
"Look what we can do to a deeply unpopular app, for $XXX we can do the same for you"
This is not exactly subtle, so even if that were the case google would have chosen to let the fake reviews remain. They have removed reviews with far less cause and care in the past.
Honestly though I would expect a service that specifically sells fake reviews to do a lot better than this. This looks like a hackjob an intern delivers when you tell them to just quickly do what all those fake review services do.
Those services are hackjobs. Google is the professional company. If google wanted to do this, they have the resources and ability to do a far better job. That have direct DB access to the play store, they can retroactively spread the reviews out, and even delete/hide the negative reviews.
As for why they aren't removed yet, that could just be that they ban in waves and haven't done so yet.
Corporations aren't single entities. They also need internal deniability etc.
As a top executive, you don't want your orders all around the company to do something to the database and skip the regular systems. You want to simply create an environment where someone far lower feels the pressure to fake reviews "on their own", and then you don't notice it until public attention or legal proceedings find it. After that you simply kick out the low level people that were involved.
The fake reviews seem to have been going for at least 6 weeks, so that would have to be a very slow cadence for ban waves.