A Growing Trend In App Regulation

The number of apps available on the various marketplaces grow day by day as our app trends continue to change, the biggest areas that have seen change most recently have been within mobile gaming and streaming services as region locks and preventive measures are put in place to limit participation options.

The most well known will be through video and movie streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+ as region locking has been around for a number of years now – there have been plenty of measures used through services such as a VPN to access content they may not have otherwise been able to and this is a trend that has continued throughout different services – there have been some steps taken to reduce the amount of content that is being restricted, but for many this is still an area of regulation or restriction that seems a little unnecessary.

Image Source: Macrumors.com

Another recent growing trend for regulation has been within mobile gaming, particularly with online gambling through betting and casino services. It had been somewhat expected to arrive for online betting especially during the massive growth that has been seen in markets such as esports, and as esports is quickly becoming one of the most popular set of sporting events in the world it was also sorely needed to prevent the younger audience that is typically attracted to these games being influenced by gambling, but it does seem that the recent need for regulation in online casinos has also been a requirement as there has been a pandemic of sorts for problem gamblers specifically on mobile devices developing.

This led to the launch of a number of different initiatives, the biggest and most successful possibly being found within Gamstop, a self inclusion scheme aimed at reducing the number of sites made available to these players – despite this change to enforce a little more control, a growing number of providers and operators have chosen to register outside the reach of the initiative and a growing number of sites not on gamstop here have become available for players looking to avoid the app regulations and restrictions and play without concern that there could be future blocks put in place to prevent them from accessing these sites – similarly the same is true through betting operators who are also looking  to avoid these regulations and changes from impacting their most dedicated players.

With recent news coming with the popular video sharing social media platform TikTok and how there were concerns about how the design of the app could lead to data protection breaches, many have suggested that regulation and restriction across many different application platforms on our smartphones may now begin to take place as users seek more protection and oftentimes more transparency, soon a simple VPN or operator being registered outside of an operating boundary may not be enough as the trend for more control over these apps continues to grow – it’s an exciting time for mobile users as tech moves forward, but it also comes with the many challenges that may be faced as the programs we used fall under more scrutiny.