Towards a Framework to Facilitate the Mobile Advertising Ecosystem

To date, app developers are allowed to monetize their apps in two services: in-app advertising and in-app billing. Of these two, in-app billing is not prevalently used by users, whereas in-app advertising is considered an important funding source for developers. However, this service incurs a number of criticisms: (1) users must passively receive all mobile ads while using apps, (2) users get nothing from viewing or clicking ads, (3) ad networks transfer user private information to remote servers in an unencrypted format without user consent, and (4) negative impressions brought from irrelevant ads may harm the advertised brands. To overcome these problems, we propose In-App AdPay, a framework that combines the advantages of "in-app advertising" and "in-app billing" together so that ad networks can overtly ask users' permissions in order to serve more tailored ads, but in return, advertisers will pay targeted users' virtual transactions within the app (e.g., coins in mobile games) via a secure channel. While mobile users can be brought into the monetization loop, it will be technically and legitimately easier for ad networks to study users. We implemented the proof-of-concept framework and conducted a test with 42 volunteers. Based on these studies, we believe that "In-App AdPay" would balance user privacy and user experience without interfering with the existing monetization arrangements. Lastly, we reveal how tracked-by-consent users react in different test scenarios and value the permissions used in ad libraries.