The Cost of the GDPR for Apps? Nearly Impossible to Study without Platform Data

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the impact of GDPR on app exits, highlighting the challenges in studying this effect without platform data and questioning previous conclusions about GDPR's role.

Contribution

It emphasizes the importance of platform data for accurate analysis and critiques prior studies that lack control conditions, suggesting their findings may overstate GDPR's impact.

Findings

Previous studies may overestimate GDPR's effect due to lack of control data

Platform data is essential for accurate impact assessment

Other factors besides GDPR could explain app exit trends

Abstract

A recently published pre-print titled 'GDPR and the Lost Generation of Innovative Apps' by Jan{\ss}en et al. observes that a third of apps on the Google Play Store disappeared from this app store around the introduction of the GDPR in May 2018. The authors deduce 'that GDPR is the cause'. The effects of the GDPR on the app economy are an important field to study. Unfortunately, the paper currently lacks a control condition and a key variable. As a result, the effects on app exits reported in the paper are likely overestimated, as we will discuss. We believe there are other factors which may better explain these changes in the Play Store aside from the GDPR.