Apple Extends Lead In App Monetization; Duopoly Hit With GDPR Suits

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Many Appy Returns

It’s a truism that iOS users and Apple App Store downloads generate more value for brands than downloads that happen through Google’s Play store. But over the past couple of years Apple has been running away with the market, according to an investor note by Katy Huberty, managing director of Morgan Stanley’s research division. Apple is the world’s biggest company, but investors still may be “underestimating the strength of its app store business,” reports CNBC. An App Store download generates four times the revenue of a download from the Play Store. Apple’s quarterly revenue per device grew from $3.27 at the beginning of 2016 to $5.08 now, while Google Play per-device revenue went from 35 cents to 47 cents. More.

Easy Target

Just four days into GDPR, Google and Facebook are already on the receiving end of lawsuits brought by consumers under Europe’s sweeping new privacy law. Austrian lawyer Max Schrems, who brought a case against Facebook in 2013 that resulted in the invalidation of the Safe Harbor data-sharing agreement between the EU and US, filed the complaints, accusing both platforms of using “forced consent” to operate their businesses. Facebook, for example, can infer sensitive information about users’ political beliefs, sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity without them explicitly sharing it on their profile. “Facebook has trackers on 40% of websites that are visited in the world,” Michael Veale, a tech policy at University College London, tells CNN. “The law forbids Facebook from making these inferences without explicit consent.” More.

Flat-Footed

Speaking of Facebook, the company’s new political ad restrictions caught some US politicians by surprise and could be a factor in some down-ballot contests this year. Those most at risk are challenger candidates who can get a good bang for their buck on Facebook and reach the number of potential voters they need with little or no television costs, reports Casey Newton at The Verge. Facebook is authenticating candidates using postcards mailed to office addresses, which will take 12-14 days. Some primaries, however, will be decided next week, and candidates are losing Facebook advertising rights in the home stretch. More. Related: More from AdExchanger on Facebook’s political policy announcement last Thursday.

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