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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.
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.