UPDATED 09:00 EDT / DECEMBER 06 2011

Have In-App Ads Gone Too Far? Android Caught in the Crosshair

If you want to know the latest gadget available for the holidays, there’s an app for that.  If you want to know which store offers the best deal for the gadget you want to buy, there’s an app for that.  There’s an app for almost everything you need in everyday life, like a calorie counter, an app to help you keep track of your exercise routine, games and video streaming for constant entertainment, and anything else you can think of.  It’s kind of hard to imagine how, just a few years back, most people didn’t even knows what an app was.  Yet today, they rule our everyday lives.

Apps are in our desktops, our browsers, mobile phones, smartphones, tablets and other computing devices.  Apps are so popular that there are almost one million apps available across the major app stores.  According to Mobilewalla, Apple’s App Store hosts 593,663 apps (as of today) at 60 percent of the market, Android hosts 322,281 for just around 32 percent, and Blackberry’s App World and the Windows Phone Marketplace combined host less than 100,000 apps at almost eight percent.

Though apps are useful, they can also cause problems for end users, and this is what some Android owners are experiencing with ad-happy apps.

If you’re fond of downloading apps, you may have noticed that some free apps have ads in the apps themselves, which may be quite annoying for some users.  In-app ads are plastered across apps and often strategically placed for frequent accidental taps, opening the ads in a browser and departing from the app all together.

But that’s nothing compared to the new generation of mobile ads.  There’s a growing number of  apps that, when downloaded, place an ad icon on your device launch screen or in your notification bar.  Some users don’t notice these ads immediately, but when they do, they are flabbergasted as to where these ad icons came from.  In some cases, Android users immediately think that their mobile device had been compromised.

Mobile marketing firms such as AirPush,Appenda, LeadBolt, Moolah Media, and StartApp are the ones behind these sneaky ad strategy.  AirPush stated that app download laced with adware recently increased from 250,000 to 800,000.

“This is what the Android operating system is all about,” said AirPush founder and CEO, Asher Delug. “It has created new marketing opportunities and allowed developers to unlock revenue within the OS.”

“We are the platform,” Delug says. “We sell the ads, build the ads, and track the performance of the ads.”

A representative of the Android Maket stated that some developers were booted and their apps removed because of policy violations, but they gave no statement as to whether they were going to do something to control apps with adware in their store.

As for the marketing firms, they stated that they have no control as to how the developers use their ad platform, they just provide it as a tool.  But they suggest to developers that they inform users of what they are getting before the app is downloaded.

Developers argue that if the public was informed, this would create a negative effect, lessening app downloads, because users won’t want any ads on their devices.  App developers earn as much as $6-$12 per 1,000 with push notification ads and other non banner ads delivered to users.

The thing is, the only way to stop the ads from plaguing you is to click on the ad and going to their webpage to opt out of the ad updates.  So even if you are opting out, the ad firm still benefits from your action.

It’s a matter that’s only now gaining widespread attention, and it’s still a matter of whether or not this will affect consumers to the point that action needs to be taken by Google or some other enforcement organization.  As the ESRB looks to rate games within the Apple Store and Android Market, there could be a day when ad formats are regulated content too.


A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU