Research on the “Multi-Party Collaborative” Regulatory Mode for Mobile Application Security in China: an Evolutionary Game Analysis

Mobile applications have become China’s primary vehicle for Internet information services, contributing significantly to economic and social development. This paper discusses how to leverage the auxiliary roles of industry associations and consumers to collaborate with the government in addressing the increasingly prominent security issues of mobile applications. The research indicates: (1) The security regulation of mobile applications is in a transitional phase, shifting from “campaign-style” to “normalized”. (2) When consumer participation is at low or medium levels, excessively high regulation intensity increases the pressure on regulatory resources. However, insufficient regulation intensity fails to prevent violations of application platforms effectively. (3) Maintaining the participation level of industry associations and consumers above a certain threshold, coupled with increased penalties, will facilitate the transition of mobile application security regulation from “campaign-style” to “normalized” stages. This paper provides theoretical insights for the Chinese government to construct a collaborative regulatory system for mobile application security.