How In-App Advertising is Collecting Your Data [Infographic]

Brian Wallace — December 10, 2019 Follow @nowsourcing

More than 9 in 10 Americans feel they’ve lost control of their personal data to corporations who mine their data from social media, connected devices, and more. But how does this collected data potentially compromise your business? When you have a business phone, these apps are still collecting data about you – where you are making your sales calls, where you are having meetings, and more. Could this data potentially be used to harm your business? What can you do about it?

Whether or not consumers prefer it, the motive for corporations collecting data is to improve personalized advertisements. Unknown to most, taking preventative measures such as revoking an app’s permission to access your location, contacts, and other data can sometimes be ineffective. Each day, we generation 250 million terabytes of new data, and the market for in-app advertising will reach $ 234 billion by 2025 – who’s to know which apps are tracking you and where your data is going?

In fewer words, your tracked data is stored into your “Advertising ID.” Your Advertising ID is linked to your phone’s permanent hardware identifiers (for example, the IMEI or Android ID you occasionally have to provide to your carrier or device repairer). Along with this, 1,700 Android apps collected permanent identifying information – which is in violation of Google’s privacy policy, who is an author of the Android operating system. Google has stated they are unable to enforce privacy policies outside of their own ad networks. In fact, it was reported that each Google user’s data is worth around $ 182, and each Facebook user’s data is worth around $ 158.

Upon collection of user data, customized ads are produced to enhance the user’s experience. Rather than disrupting the user experience, ads are being played in the background. What comes with this is click fraud: ads containing malware undetectable to the system’s firewalls. In 2018, researchers identified 13 apps that garnered over 500,000 downloads that served no other purpose but to lure in an audience to install their click fraud malware.

Understanding this, we can move forward. You can learn more about the worst apps for user privacy, and how to avoid them, in the information provided below.

Infographic Source: Security Degree Hub

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