Navigating The World Of Privacy Concerns With dApps

dApps as an alternative ensure protection of user data and with the adoption of Web 3.0 worldwide, the scalability of dApps is set to expand further

- Aniket Jindal

Mobile applications today have become an integral part of daily lives and it has become difficult to manage it without them. From meditation to shopping, there is an application for everything. These applications further, are notorious for tracking, storing, and analyzing the data unintentionally fed into them. For instance, for users enabling their locations to receive the usual weather reports, region-wise news, social media updates, etc., companies owning those applications can track the precise locations of those users with sophisticated algorithms and technologies.

These companies then can sell, use, or analyze the data and can further share it with third parties seeking insights into consumer behavior and other related metrics. American companies alone are estimated to have spent over $19 billion in 2018 acquiring and analyzing consumer data, according to an Interactive Advertising Bureau Research Report.

The global mobile applications economy has risen significantly as companies have started investing heavily in developing and refining mobile applications. The global mobile application market size was valued at $106.27 billion in 2018, and is projected to reach $407.31 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 18.4 per cent from 2019 to 2026.

But with the growing revenue in the mobile applications sector, the cases of privacy concerns have also seen a consequential increase. Researchers at Oxford University had examined the inbuilt code in several mobile applications which led to the revelation that the code itself allows for users’ data to be shared widely. Furthermore, it highlighted the centralization of data collection as the majority of the data collected flowed upwards into the hands of only a few companies, primarily Google’s parent company Alphabet, as well as Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Microsoft.