Mobile Advertising Privacy Concerns

Mobile Advertising Privacy Concerns

Mobile advertising account for around 7% of all digital spend, and 20% of mobile spend is now being used on “Rich-media ads”, (Jon Mew, 2012). Mobile advertising has increased its relevance within marketing due to the increase of smartphones and also the increase of tablet ownership Mobile advertising has been able to have a great impact due to these two devices pushing this new means of advertising to thinking of new and relevant methods in reaching their consumers. 

A problem in which mobile advertising is having is issues over the Privacy and where and how the users personal information is stored and whether it is safe. Over 70% of users are now more concerned about privacy then this time last year, and with another alarming 80% of users stating “they will not user an app if they don’t not trust it” (Dave Deasy, 2013).

This is big percentage of people that are become more and more conscious of this problem and become more vary of the information which they’ve provided and whether it is safe. For mobile advertising to fully gain momentum will be to eliminate factors such as this by implementing different factors that can keep the information of consumers safe and that is one of the most fundamental factors. 

Mobile Internet usages has already eclipsed desktop Internet usage therefore mobile privacy is a very important issue which needs to be resolved (Chantal Tode, 2013). People have easier way to access mobile Internet through different devices, therefore with the number of people using “Mobile internet” increasing, more and more people are going to become more aware of the problems over privacy.

Whether this will have am impact on people using the internet, personally I don’t not think so, The problems lays within the advertising factors and how the personalised advertising may be having an impact on people attitudes and behaviors towards mobile advertising and the privacy concerns surrounding it. 

Those that are concerned about the privacy issues surrounding mobile advertising will see thing that are going to be implemented so that those issues become less important. “The mobile advertising industry will see a greater enforcement around mobile prices and a number of different fronts, including Locations based data and privacy policies for children”  (Jules Polonetsky, 2012).

With such a strong use of data through smartphones and also tablets, privacy is going to be critical so that the users data is safe. Users are aware that mobile devices are becoming more sophisticated and a lot more useful therefore outline that fact that the device are not tracking their every move is essential. 

With the emergence of personalised advertising as well as location based advertising this also can mean that more people are wondering, “How does O2 Priority Moments know I’m in Boots”. With both of these forms of advertising the possibility of companies such as O2 assembling of a detailed user profile of your mobile advertising habits are very easy.

The user who is and O2 customer for this example, 02 will already have information about the user due to the fact that he/she has a phone number that is provided by O2. If the user is on contract then even more information about the consumer will be stored and therefore this information can be used in order to advertising different products or service to the potential consumer.

And with the aid of location based services this will inform the consumer that there is and offer for this product located within a certain store, for the user to access the discount for that offer a code will be provided to the shop in order to gain the discount. This then notifies O2 that the user has used this discount code and therefore in the future if similar products come up on offer then personalised messages could be sent to the user informing them of the offer and this is when the user get that “How do they know that” feeling which is starting to cause real concern for some smartphone and tablet users. 

Handset’s like Apple’s iPhone enables the user to turn of the “Location based Service”, and therefore this means that potential location based advertising will not be received by that user due to the fact the there potential mobile advertising is unaware of the location of the user.

Mobile advertising will have a great impact in all our lives, as the smartphone and tablet ownership continues to grow so will mobile advertising. The increasing access to the internet through these devices allows the advertiser to contact the consumer not only through conventional means of advertising but also through mobile advertising. And with the increase also come and increase in fears over privacy measures. Due to the access to the internet as they customers are on the move, service such as online banking will only continue to increase and therefore this is when the consumers start being wary how staff their private information really is. I don’t believe this will have a really big impact on mobile advertising but it is a limitation until a more conventional format such as PayPal was for the internet is created for mobile devices so consumer gain a better understand and also feel more secure about their data.