TY - GEN
T1 - Is this app safe for children? A comparison study of maturity ratings on android and iOS applications
AU - Chen, Ying
AU - Xu, Heng
AU - Zhou, Yilu
AU - Zhu, Sencun
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - There is a rising concern among parents who have experienced unreliable content maturity ratings for mobile applications (apps) that result in inappropriate risk exposure for their children and adolescents. In reality, there is no consistent maturity rating policy for mobile applications. The maturity ratings of Android apps are provided purely by developers' self-disclosure and are rarely verified. While Apple's iOS app ratings are considered to be more accurate, they can also be inconsistent with Apple's published policies. To address these issues, this research aims to systematically uncover the extent and severity of unreliable maturity ratings for mobile apps. Specifically, we develop mechanisms to verify the maturity ratings of mobile apps and investigate possible reasons behind the incorrect ratings. We believe that our findings have important implications for platform providers (e.g., Google or Apple) as well as for regulatory bodies and application developers. Copyright is held by the International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2).
AB - There is a rising concern among parents who have experienced unreliable content maturity ratings for mobile applications (apps) that result in inappropriate risk exposure for their children and adolescents. In reality, there is no consistent maturity rating policy for mobile applications. The maturity ratings of Android apps are provided purely by developers' self-disclosure and are rarely verified. While Apple's iOS app ratings are considered to be more accurate, they can also be inconsistent with Apple's published policies. To address these issues, this research aims to systematically uncover the extent and severity of unreliable maturity ratings for mobile apps. Specifically, we develop mechanisms to verify the maturity ratings of mobile apps and investigate possible reasons behind the incorrect ratings. We believe that our findings have important implications for platform providers (e.g., Google or Apple) as well as for regulatory bodies and application developers. Copyright is held by the International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2).
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84893118139&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84893118139&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84893118139
SN - 9781450320351
T3 - WWW 2013 - Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on World Wide Web
SP - 201
EP - 211
BT - WWW 2013 - Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on World Wide Web
T2 - 22nd International Conference on World Wide Web, WWW 2013
Y2 - 13 May 2013 through 17 May 2013
ER -