Apple Inc. has pulled as many as 25,000 apps from the China App Store after the country’s state-run media accused the company of not doing enough to clamp down on illegal apps.

According to a report in Bloomberg late Sunday, Chinese media, including China Central Television, said gambling apps were available in the store, some of which were related to fake lottery tickets. At least 4,000 of the apps were linked to the keyword “gambling.”

News of the cull didn’t originate from Apple, but from CCTV, which said Apple had executed a “large-scale removal of illegal apps that sold fake lottery tickets and offered gambling services.”

The government-run media, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal Monday, said Apple had rules in place relating to what kind of apps were allowed in its store, but hadn’t been vigilant. This led to a “proliferation of bogus lottery apps and gambling apps” appearing in the store.

“Gambling apps are illegal and not allowed on the App Store in China,” Apple said later said in a statement sent to both Bloomberg and the Journal. “We have already removed many apps and developers for trying to distribute illegal gambling apps on our App Store, and we are vigilant in our efforts to find these and stop them from being on the App Store.”

Given that gambling is a so-called vice and it seems people had been hoodwinked, it’s not surprising that Apple has responded to pressure in this case. China is not a market anyone can afford to ignore.

Google LLC has reportedly been figuring out how to maintain a search engine in the country that won’t upset the applecart, which in turn has led to criticism by some of the American public and its own employees.

A recent poll by Blind, a workplace social network primarily for employees at Google, Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc. Facebook Inc. and Uber Inc., recently surveyed 7,369 tech employees. The question asked was, “Should Google provide a censored search engine in China?”

More than 64 percent of people from all the companies said Google should not develop a search engine, but from 472 Google employees who responded, more than 65 percent said the company should go ahead.

Image: Max Braun/Flickr