Home » Technology » GDPR Europe Could Lead To Fewer Apps For Android

GDPR Europe Could Lead To Fewer Apps For Android

According to a study, the new European Union data protection guidelines, based on which the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was introduced in the country, have caused the number of new apps in the Google Play Store to drop significantly. if The register cites a study by researchers from Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, and the US, the GDPR is said to have led to a sharp drop in the number of newly available apps for Android in the Google Play Store. The authors do not give specific reasons for the decline, but they do see a temporal relationship.

Users prefer to use better apps

Since the introduction of the GDPR, the number of new apps available in Google’s App Store is said to have fallen by about a third, but there is also a positive effect for software developers. Meanwhile, users would rely more on higher-quality apps, while the apps’ obsession with collecting data would have diminished. The “problem” is mainly that the app developers have to live with the GDPR and its international variants with higher costs that can arise from the measures to comply with data protection regulations.

At the same time, however, the average number of users per app has risen sharply, so developers can theoretically expect a higher income. Some critics of the study, quoted by The Register, point out that they believe it contains some fundamental flaws. Data protection rules were already in place in many countries before the implementation of the Europe-wide requirements, raising the question of whether a causal link can really be established between the GDPR or its variants and the decline in the number of new apps. In addition, Google regularly ‘cleans up’ its own store, ie takes action against certain apps or changes the regulations for publishing new apps. Renowned app developer Steve Troughton-Smith also noted that apps that failed to meet EU privacy standards shouldn’t have a place in the Play Store anyway.