App Store Scams in Education

The top downloads in the Education category of the United States Mac App Store are Chatbot: Ask Chat AI Assistant, AI Chatbot - Ask AI Anything. and AI Chatbot・Ask AI Anything. Each has expensive weekly, monthly, and yearly subscriptions, as well as a “lifetime” purchase of $100 or $200. Incredible, right? Chatbot: Ask Chat AI Assistant, the #1 download in the Education category, is the #9 download overall in the United States Mac App Store. It’s the #6 download overall in the Ireland Mac App Store. Why do I mention Ireland specifically? In my many articles about App Store scams, I’ve mentioned several obvious red flags, such as ridiculously expensive auto-renewing subscriptions with trials of only 3 days, the minimum trial length allowed by Apple. Another red flag is failing to identify as a “trader” as legally required in the European Union, despite having In-App Purchases. (Developers with totally free apps don’t necessarily have to identify as an EU trader.) You can’t see the…

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