IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cep/cepdps/dp2207.html

Is data privacy a losing game? Evidence from Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy

Author

Listed:
  • Nestor Duch-Brown
  • Christos Genakos
  • Blair Yuan Lyu

Abstract

We study the impact of Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy, which requires apps to obtain explicit user permission before cross-app tracking, on the mobile gaming industry. Using SensorTower US data on the top 5,000 games on iOS and Android (2020-2023) and a difference-in-differences design, we show that ATT increases iOS games' revenue and revenue per user, with little impact on user numbers. Gains arise from re-optimised in-app purchase menus and more major updates, not higher prices or paywalls. ATT raises concentration and reduces entry, benefiting Apple and incumbents while raising barriers to entry for new competitors.

Suggested Citation

  • Nestor Duch-Brown & Christos Genakos & Blair Yuan Lyu, 2026. "Is data privacy a losing game? Evidence from Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy," CEP Discussion Papers dp2207, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2207
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp2207.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2207. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/discussion-papers/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.