Table 3.

Illustrative Examples of Commercialization of User Data (n = 24)

Commercial purpose	Number of apps (%)a	Illustrative quotations (app, developer)
Marketing developer’s products and services	9 (38%)	“We may use your Personal Data to contact you with newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information only if you have opted-in. You may opt-out of receiving any, or all, of these communications from us by following the unsubscribe link or instructions provided in any email we send.” (Drugs.com Medication Guide, Drugs.com, bold in original) “for our own marketing, promotional, and informational purposes, including sharing with contracted third parties to assist with our own marketing efforts (all contracted third parties must agree not to use your personal information other than to fulfill their responsibilities to us).” (Epocrates Plus, Epocrates, Inc., bold in original)
Advertising revenue	7 (29%)	“These third parties may also obtain anonymous information about other applications you have downloaded to your mobile device, the mobile websites you visit, your non-precise location information (e.g., your zip code), and other non-precise location information in order to help analyze and serve anonymous targeted advertising on the Application and elsewhere.” (ListMeds – Free, Fourth Career Solutions) “We use cookies, Web beacons and other similar automated tracking technologies to show targeted ads of our services on your device(s). These ads are more likely to be relevant to you because they are based on inferences drawn from location data, web viewing data collected across non-affiliated sites over time, and/or other application use data. This is called “Interest-based Advertising”.” (UpToDate for Android, Wolters Kluwer Health | UpToDate) “Drugs.com is NOT affiliated with any pharmaceutical companies. The only funding we receive from pharmaceutical companies is by way of advertisements that appear on the Drugs.com website.” (Drugs.com Medication Guide, Drugs.com) “We give you [advertisers] access to the largest community of active physicians and HCPs [health care professionals] across all specialties and we leverage our deep-scale data to reach the exact audience you want to engage.” (Medscape, WebMD, LLC)
Sponsorship revenue	4 (17%)	Sponsorship “allows us to provide certain content at no additional cost to our members. In addition, we believe that third parties have information that is relevant and valuable to clinicians. Therefore, we also provide opportunities for third parties to market their own products and services or distribute their own content to our network through a variety of mechanisms within our Services.” (Epocrates Plus, Epocrates, Inc.) Pharmaceutical companies are “utilizing MedAdvisor’s platform to ensure their drugs are taken appropriately through training and adherence campaigns aimed only at those using their drugs.” (MedAdvisor, MedAdvisor)
Commercializing customer insights	3 (13%)	“With global ambition MedSmart® offers unique patients insights from how medicines are used in the real world to healthcare stakeholders including Pharmaceutical Companies.” (MedSmart Meds & Pill Reminder App, Talking Medicines) “GuildLink also uses the information for market research, project planning, troubleshooting, detecting and protecting against error, fraud and other criminal activities, statistical analysis and reporting on trends in pharmacy related service delivery, for analysis and reporting to government on health and health related trends, to evaluate the effectiveness, efficacy and value of myPharmacyLink and for providing commercial services. GuildLink sells reports of aggregated de-identified information about these matters to third parties.” (myPharmacyLink, GuildLink Pty Ltd)
Licensing the app	2 (8%)	“myPharmacyLink is white labeled, meaning it’s fully customisable to your pharmacy’s branding. As soon as your patient activates the app, it will display your branding and your pharmacy’s details. The app is only linked to your pharmacy, so your trusted relationship with the patient is reinforced every time they interact with you through the app.” (myPharmacyLink, GuildLink Pty Ltd)
Exclusive “supply agreements”	1 (4%)	“GSK’s brand Panadol Osteo is granted exclusive access to be the only paracetamol based product to engage with MedAdvisor Platform users in [MedAdvisor Training and Adherence Communications] MTAC services. GSK pays MedAdvisor based on a number of products that utilize the MTAC services of the Platform. The agreement is for an initial two year term with GSK holding an option to extend for a further one year.” (MedAdvisor, MedAdvisor)

^aPercentages do not add to 100% as some apps used multiple strategies