IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-21-01074.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Third parties in the app market and economics of privacy

Author

Listed:
  • Grazia Cecere

    (Institut Mines Telecom, Business School, LITEM)

  • Vincent Lefrere

    (Institut Mines Telecom, Business School, LITEM)

  • Fabrice Le Guel

    (Université Paris-Saclay, RITM)

Abstract

In the mobile applications market, the majority of mobile apps are free to download. We focus on some special features of this market such as access to specific user data and growing importance of third parties. Many apps features and in particular advertising, business analytics are offered via third parties which are embedded into the apps. This third parties market is hidden to consumers but it offers an important value added to app functionalities. We investigate whether personal data are more likely to be collected by apps that use third parties such as firms offering social network services or access to advanced services. We find that apps that are associated with big third parties are less likely to collect personal data. The results suggest that big firms have the competences to extract value from data without collecting too much personal data.

Suggested Citation

  • Grazia Cecere & Vincent Lefrere & Fabrice Le Guel, 2022. "Third parties in the app market and economics of privacy," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(2), pages 1040-1049.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-21-01074
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2022/Volume42/EB-22-V42-I2-P88.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anindya Ghose & Sang Pil Han, 2014. "Estimating Demand for Mobile Applications in the New Economy," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(6), pages 1470-1488, June.
    2. Stefano Comino & Fabio M. Manenti & Franco Mariuzzo, 2019. "Updates management in mobile applications: iTunes versus Google Play," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 392-419, June.
    3. Maximilian Schäfer & Geza Sapi, 2020. "Learning from Data and Network Effects: The Example of Internet Search," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1894, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dominik Gutt & Jürgen Neumann & Wael Jabr & Dennis Kundisch, 2020. "The Fate of the App: Economic Implications of Updating under Reputation Resetting," Working Papers Dissertations 76, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    2. Subrahmanyam Aditya Karanam & Ashish Agarwal & Anitesh Barua, 2023. "Design for Social Sharing: The Case of Mobile Apps," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 34(2), pages 721-743, June.
    3. Kang, Hye Young, 2022. "Technological engagement of women entrepreneurs on online digital platforms: Evidence from the Apple iOS App Store," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    4. Feiyan Lin & Jing Zhao & Maomao Chi, 2022. "A Study on Temporal Effects of Different Types of Mobile Application Updates," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-21, January.
    5. Enache, Andreea & Friberg, Richard & Wiklander, Magnus, 2023. "Demand for in-app purchases in mobile apps—A difference-in-difference approach," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    6. Numminen, Emil & Sällberg, Henrik & Wang, Shujun, 2022. "The impact of app revenue model choices for app revenues: A study of apps since their initial App Store launch," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 325-336.
    7. Bradlow, Eric T. & Gangwar, Manish & Kopalle, Praveen & Voleti, Sudhir, 2017. "The Role of Big Data and Predictive Analytics in Retailing," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 79-95.
    8. Jinyang Zheng & Zhengling Qi & Yifan Dou & Yong Tan, 2019. "How Mega Is the Mega? Exploring the Spillover Effects of WeChat Using Graphical Model," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 30(4), pages 1343-1362, December.
    9. Kawaguchi, Kohei & Kuroda, Toshifumi & Sato, Susumu, 2023. "Relevant markets and market power of mobile apps," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    10. Yifei Xie & Mazen Danaf & Carlos Lima Azevedo & Arun Prakash Akkinepally & Bilge Atasoy & Kyungsoo Jeong & Ravi Seshadri & Moshe Ben-Akiva, 2019. "Behavioral modeling of on-demand mobility services: general framework and application to sustainable travel incentives," Transportation, Springer, vol. 46(6), pages 2017-2039, December.
    11. Haiqing Hu & Pandu R. Tadikamalla, 2020. "When to launch a sales promotion for online fashion products? An empirical study," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 737-756, December.
    12. Luv Sharma & Aravind Chandrasekaran & Elliot Bendoly, 2020. "Does the Office of Patient Experience Matter in Improving Delivery of Care?," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(4), pages 833-855, April.
    13. Joey van Angeren & Govert Vroom & Brian T. McCann & Ksenia Podoynitsyna & Fred Langerak, 2022. "Optimal distinctiveness across revenue models: Performance effects of differentiation of paid and free products in a mobile app market," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(10), pages 2066-2100, October.
    14. Rehse, Dominik & Tremöhlen, Felix, 2020. "Fostering participation in digital public health interventions: The case of digital contact tracing," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-076, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    15. Jingtao Yi & Jinqiu He & Lihong Yang, 2019. "Platform heterogeneity, platform governance and complementors’ product performance: an empirical study of the mobile application industry," Frontiers of Business Research in China, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 1-20, December.
    16. Michelle Andrews & Xueming Luo & Zheng Fang & Anindya Ghose, 2016. "Mobile Ad Effectiveness: Hyper-Contextual Targeting with Crowdedness," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(2), pages 218-233, March.
    17. Jens Prüfer & Christoph Schottmüller, 2021. "Competing with Big Data," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(4), pages 967-1008, December.
    18. Abdullatif I. R. ALHUDAITHY, 2019. "The Impact of Supermarkets’ Mobile Application on Saudi Customer’s Behavior during the Buying Decision Process," Expert Journal of Marketing, Sprint Investify, vol. 7(1), pages 77-91.
    19. Davazdahemami, Behrooz & Kalgotra, Pankush & Zolbanin, Hamed M. & Delen, Dursun, 2023. "A developer-oriented recommender model for the app store: A predictive network analytics approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    20. Luis Aguiar Wicht, 2019. "Going Mobile: The Effects of Smartphone Usage on Internet Consumption," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2019-07, Joint Research Centre.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economics of privacy; economics of mobile applications;

    JEL classification:

    • L5 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy
    • M3 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-21-01074. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.