Besides the disclosure of data collected by app developers, #Apple also requires them to state the use of data linked and data not linked to users. To study the different purposes like functionality and ads, let’s revisit the 50k #apps with #privacy labels from two weeks ago. 1/6

For apps collecting data linked to users, the most frequent purposes are app functionality followed by analytics and product personalization. The use for developer’s (or first-party) ads seems to be more prevalent than for third-party ads. 2/6

In contrast, apps that collect data not linked to users have it for app functionality and analytics at a similarly high rate. Moreover, such data also looks like to be more important for third-party ads than for first-party ads. 3/6

Contrasting between free and paid apps, the share of paid apps is higher than on Google’s Play Store and paid apps are way less likely to collect data. Conditional on data collection, free apps use data linked to users more often for ads, be it developer’s or third-party ads. 4/6

Finally, I distinguish apps’ use of data linked to users by comparing the top 1 % with the bottom 99 % apps based on the number of ratings. In general, top apps make more use of its data, also roughly doubling the share of apps using it for first- and third-party ads. 5/6

With a new month approaching, the next update on more apps is about to come, too. It will especially show how many app developers now added privacy labels. Interestingly, Google still has none for many of its apps. https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/20/google-ios-apps-still-no-privacy-labels/ 6/6