Table 4.
Categorisation of first and third parties (n=37) performing data analytics
| Main activity of parties | No (%) | Description* | Examples | Example domain names† |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First parties: | ||||
| Freelance app development | 3 (8) | Design, develop, and maintain apps for third party clients to specification; services might include app usage analytics, ad campaign setup, and reporting; app store optimisation or customer support | Atmosphere Apps (USBMIS); Mobixed | secure.usbmis.com; www.mobixed.com |
| Clinical decision support | 7 (19) | Ranging from not-for-profit companies to corporations, these companies provide evidence based drug information and clinical decision supports on digital platforms, including websites and apps; some are available through individual or institutional subscriptions; those that are free to users generate revenue through hosted advertising and sponsored content | Epocrates (AthenaHealth); Medscape (WebMD); UpToDate; Lexi-Comp; MIMS Australia; AZCERT | services.epocrates.com; api.medscape.com; www.uptodate.com; update.lexi.com; iris.mimsandroid.com.au; crediblemeds.org |
| Consumer health management | 6 (16) | Consumer-facing apps that support drug adherence, health management, and care coordination; free for consumers, these companies generate revenue from pharmaceutical companies, health insurers, or health services by licensing the app (on a per member basis), sponsorship, or selling data commodities | Ada Health; MedAdvisor; Talking Medicines; MyMeds; Montuno Software; Precedence Health Care | prod-mh-22.ada.com; mobile.medadvisor.com.au; talkingmedicines.azurewebsites.net; app.my-meds.com; ppserver.montunosoftware.com; cdm.net.au |
| Third parties: | ||||
| Analytics | 5 (14) | Freemium services; in exchange, companies retain the right to collect, aggregate, and commercialise deidentified end user data; companies provide services to app developers, including error and bug reporting, and analysis of user numbers, characteristics, and behaviours; some also offer the ability to understand users’ behaviours across devices and platforms and integrate with advertising data to target marketing activities | Crashlytics; Sentry; Google Analytics; Flurry; Amplitude† | settings.crashlytics.com; ssl.google-analytics.com; data.flurry.com |
| User engagement | 6 (16) | Freemium services; in exchange, companies retain the right to collect, aggregate, and commercialise de-identified end user data; these software integrations allow developers to analyse how users navigate an app, features users find most engaging and provide push notifications to increase user engagement | One Signal; Apptimize; Urban Airship; Braze; Mixpanel; Customer.io† | onesignal.com; brahe.apptimize.com; combine.urbanairship.com; dev.appboy.com; api.mixpanel.com |
| Advertising | 7 (19) | Includes services that provide advertisement attribution to tie each user to the ads they interact with; buying and selling of ad space; ad serving and ad management; and analytics that enable ad targeting and personalisation | Audience Network by Facebook†; AdMob by Google†; TUNE; Adjust; 24/7 Real Media; JanRain; AppsFlyer | 169316.engine.mobileapptracking.com; app.adjust.com; oasc17.247realmedia.com; nps.au.jainraincapture.com; t.appsflyer.com |
| Social media | 1 (3) | Integration with social media platforms, allowing apps to share users’ data with social media or to import social media data into the app; this could include a Facebook login, status updates related to the app, sharing content via social media, or finding a list of contacts who have also installed the app; this integration also allows for cross-platform advertising | Facebook Graph API | graph.facebook.com |
| Customer support | 1 (3) | Paid services based on level of use; a software product that allows for tracking, prioritising, and solving user support issues including live chat and messaging and AI-powered help tools | Zendesk† | |
| Government | 1 (3) | Several application programming interfaces are available through the National Library of Medicine related to public drug information sources | National Library of Medicine | rximage.nlm.nih.gov |
*
Description based on content analysis of entities’ websites and linked documents such as privacy policies, terms and conditions, and investor prospectuses.
†
When there was no corresponding domain name, the developers self reported data sharing with the third party in the app’s privacy policy.