The company has promised to get scam apps off the store as soon as possible

Aug 29, 2014 13:21 GMT  ·  By

The problem of scam apps in the Windows Store appears to be getting on Microsoft’s nerves these days, so the software company has started removing many of the entries that it finds to be misleading.

After deleting a batch of 1,500 apps, according to its very own statistics, Microsoft is now going on with the store cleaning, with a chart confirming that more entries are being removed every day.

Statistics provided by MetroStore Scanner, a third-party service that keeps an eye on Windows Store submissions, reveal that in the last 10 days, the number of Metro apps available for Windows 8 users has fluctuated by a few hundreds, which is an indication that while new items are being submitted for approval, others are also getting the axe at the same time.

At this point, there are approximately 172,000 apps available for download in the Windows Store, and these figures have remained pretty much the same in the past few days, mostly following the company’s efforts to keep the store clean and block apps that could be considered misleading.

Here’s a breakdown of the last 10 days, according to stats provided by MetroStore Scanner:

August 18: 172,292 apps August 19: 172,429 apps August 20: 172,552 apps August 21: 172,552 apps August 22: 172,132 apps August 23: 171,811 apps August 24: 171,658 apps August 25: 171,774 apps August 26: 171,874 apps August 27: 171,121 apps August 28: 172,080 apps

Microsoft has recently decided to revise certification guidelines in order to prevent scam apps from reaching the Windows Store and thus put the focus on quality rather than on quantity. At the same time, it has announced that all those who purchased apps that are no longer available in the store will get their money back in their accounts.

“These revised policies are being applied to all new app submissions and existing app updates for both the Windows and Windows Phone Store. We’ve also been working on titles already in the catalog, conducting a review of Windows Store to identify titles that do not comply with our modified certification requirements. This process is continuing as we work to be as thorough and transparent as possible in our review,” the company said a couple of days ago.

There’s no doubt that putting the focus on quality is the thing that needs to be done as soon as possible, but there’s clearly a lot of work when it comes to removing the misleading apps from the Windows Store.