But from using the Store, the overwhelming majority of crap appears to be distinctly from not the US. Having dealt with local MS subsidiaries, I'd be surprised if they didn't do similar stuff. The ones I've seen are quite eager to promote and can get cash from Redmond.

Or, seeing as how MS regularly publishes stuff that's a total fake, even when the publisher claims to be Microsoft itself, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't validate US residency here.

Or I might just be biased and the publishers just have terrible English and uncommon names for North America. But some of them used the letters "pvt ltd" in their fake company names, which is not common in the US.

Email me if you want some more details. I've got screenshots of lots of the junk, but I'm on my phone and don't have the links handy.

Being paid is common enough, and I've heard of companies getting 5-6 figures from MS to port stuff. But I think getting paid per app, like the link above shows, is the only explanation for some of the broken shovelware that's dumped on the store. Maybe advertising, but there doesn't seem to be any install volume. (Paid scams are a different story, like fake Netflix or WinRAR.)