Pixalate, the global market-leading ad fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform, today (October 31st, 2024) released the September 2024 Open Programmatic Ads and No Detected Privacy Policy Benchmarks Report for the Apple App Store, part of Pixalate’s Privacy Violation Risks in Mobile Apps series.
The report reveals new findings on the number of Apple App Store hosted mobile apps enabled for open programmatic advertising (i.e., apps with an app-ads.txt file) but have no detected privacy policies, according to Pixalate’s data. Pixalate also released a Google Play Store version of the report.
A privacy policy, also known as a 'privacy statement' or 'notice,' is an essential document often required to be disclosed under multiple global privacy laws and regulations, including the GDPR, CCPA, and more. It outlines how users’ personal data is handled by organisations and discloses individuals’ data privacy rights.
"Our report uncovers how large reputable platforms continue to host mobile apps that not only potentially violate data protection laws but also the platforms’ own developer guidelines,’" said Yusra Kayani, director of data protection & privacy, "Consumers need to know how their data is being collected, used and shared. This report highlights a greater need for transparency and accountability within the mobile app ecosystem."
Key Findings
- Over 17,000 Apple App Store apps with ads (an app-ads.txt file) failed to provide a detectable privacy policy .
- An estimated 23.9 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs) interact with App Store apps with ads but no detected privacy policies.
- 5,422 unique mobile app developers published over 17,000 apps with ads lacking detected privacy policies.
Pixalate’s data science team analyzed over 236,000 mobile apps available for download across the Apple App Store in September 2024 to compile this research.
Download the Reports