Economics of Free Mobile Applications: Personal Data

What Does Google Opinion Rewards Require and Get from Users?

“…In this sense, free apps have three possible solo or combined monetization in-app strategies: (i) advertising; (ii) purchases; and (iii) users' personal data. While in-app ads are mostly used by apps downloaded fewer than 100 million times, those downloaded more than 100 million times mostly earn their revenues by selling personal data (Cecere et al, 2020). Various studies reveal that GOR and similar free mobile apps demand more access to personal data than paid apps (Hyrynsalmi et al, 2012;Leontiadis et al, 2012;Polykalas & Prezerakos, 2019), which strongly suggests that the business model of free mobile apps is based on personal data abuse: "When the mobile app is free, the product is your personal data" (Meng, et al, 2016;Polykalas & Prezerakos, 2019).…”

“…The application (henceforth-app) has been downloaded by more than 100 million users from mobile app markets, and it is just one of the free apps available in both Google Play and Apple's Store (Statista, 2021). Although the app is free for users, it could be they are paying with their data, because data collection is tightly associated with monetization (Cecere et al, 2020). Some previous studies on this topic (Book & Wallach, 2015;Demotriou et al, 2016;Meng et al, 2016;Razaghpanah et al, 2018) suggest free mobile app developers sell the personal data of their users to third parties.…”

Trading Data for Health

“…The business model of contemporary apps, including mHealth apps, is that such apps are often free to use -or available for rather modest monetary prices -but require users to grant providers access to their personal data (Cecere et al, 2020;Sax et al, 2018). Becker et al (2017) describe privacy concerns as perceived costs in the use of mHealth apps.…”

“…Sax, Helberger, and Bol (2018) point out that on part of the consumer, the use of mHealth apps is a double-edged sword as most mHealth apps provide users with tailor-made health solutions, either through user-driven customization or provider-driven personalization (Nguyen et al, 2020). The app economy, however, often necessitates the monetization of users' personal data (Cecere et al, 2020). Personal health data is considered particularly sensitive and its protection has become a major challenge for app users, providers, and regulatory bodies (Zhang et al, 2018;Martínez-Pérez et al, 2015;Dehling et al, 2015).…”