According to a study conducted Pew Research Center, 235 types of permissions on more than one million apps in the Google Play Store. Smartphone users are keen to understand how their data is being used and shared: 60% of people using the Play Store had decided against installing an app when they discovered how much personal information is required, and 43% had uninstalled an app for the same reason.
Researchers say 90% of app downloaders indicated that how their personal data will be used is important to them when considering whether to download an app. App permission is not necessarily pernicious, the researchers said: a program may need to access the camera, flash or location in order to function properly.
But more troublesome is how personal data is accessed and shared with marketers or other parties. The research, focusing on Android applications and not Apples iOS apps, which are on a more tightly guarded system, unveils that a relatively small number of apps dominate the ecosystem. Findings show that 47% of all apps available in the Google Play Store had been installed fewer than 500 times, while 11 apps were downloaded more than 500 million times.
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