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Find out the week’s top mobile stories from around the world. Headlines this week include… Fraudulent mobile apps growing in numbers, Facebook revamps its business tool lineup following threats to its ad targeting business, Mobile app creation: Why data privacy and compliance should be at the forefront and much more…

Fraudulent mobile apps growing in numbers

Tech Radar

Fraudulent mobile apps, whose only purpose is to steal valuable personal and payment information from unsuspecting victims, are seeing a significant rise in numbers, experts have warned.

A new report from payment fraud protection specialists Outseer claims that out of all fraudulent attacks that happened in Q2 2021 (of which there were more than 49,000), rogue mobile apps accounted for almost a third (30%).

That represents a spike of 66% in just 90 days, and an increase of 140% compared to the same period last year. The growth, Outseer claims, could be attributed to the fact that due to the pandemic, consumers started using mobile banking apps a bit more.

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Facebook revamps its business tool lineup following threats to its ad targeting business

Tech Crunch

Facebook today is announcing the launch of new products and features for business owners, following the threat to its ad targeting business driven by Apple’s new privacy features, which now allow mobile users to opt out of being tracked across their iOS apps. The social networking giant has repeatedly argued that Apple’s changes would impact small businesses that relied on Facebook ads to reach their customers. But it was not successful in getting any of Apple’s changes halted. Instead, the market is shifting to a new era focused more on user privacy, where personalization and targeting are more of an opt-in experience. That’s required Facebook to address its business advertiser base in new ways.

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Mobile app creation: Why data privacy and compliance should be at the forefront

Help Net Security

In today’s mobile app landscape, providing customers with the most tailored and personal experience possible is essential to edging out competitors. But creating such a custom-made experience requires collecting personal data – and when considering the criticism massive tech companies are garnering for their misuse of sensitive information – mobile app developers must prioritize data privacy and compliance.

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Intelligence Brief: IoT is a journey

Mobile World Live

On 7 September I made my way to Islington Business centre to attend IoT Tech Expo. An actual, physical event. In person. That and to moderate a session: IoT enabled Digital Transformation. Connected, IoT-enabled devices have become an inherent part of everyday life across consumers, enterprises and wider society. I am not only talking about barking commands at Alexa, regulating temperature via a connected thermostat or chatting to a Postie over a connected doorbell.

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Marketing mobile games is dead. ‘Probabilistically’

Venture Beat

By any measure of value, audience size, or growth, mobile is the dominant form of gaming media. Already immensely popular due to its accessibility and wide range of content, the COVID-19 pandemic created hundreds of millions of new mobile players and increased the playtime and appetite to spend of existing gamers. With over a billion weekly game downloads on the Apple App Store and Google Play, resulting in more than $1.7 billion in weekly spend, the mobile game industry is clearly booming.

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Nearly two-thirds of UK consumers would now prefer to make card payments from a mobile wallet

NFCW

Nearly two in three consumers in the UK (62%) would now prefer to use their payment card through a mobile wallet compared with 31% last year, according to a survey commissioned by Samsung Pay.

The survey also found that, although 56% of participants still use physical payment cards, 90% believe that during the Covid-19 pandemic making contactless payments with a smartphone or smartwatch is more convenient and 86% say that using mobile payment methods makes them feel safe.

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Beyond Satoshi’s Bitcoin – The Next Poster Child For Blockchain Is In Your Pocket

Yahoo Finance

Though Bitcoin was first created in 2008, most of us had never heard of it until 2017 when it had its first meteoric rise to nearly $20k per coin. More people were then made aware of this revolutionary technology when Bitcoin made its historic bull run from $10k to over $60k in the span of six months from 2020 to 2021.

With the advent of Bitcoin, its creator Satoshi Nakamoto also gave us the gift of blockchain. This distributed ledger technology essentially lets millions of people contribute to the same Bitcoin network by lending their computing power for the purpose of verifying transactions while being rewarded in Bitcoin, otherwise known as “mining.”

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Pakistan launches digital ID authentication on smartphones

Gulf News

Islamabad: Pakistanis will now be able to apply for ID cards and sign up for bank services via their smartphones with the new biometric verification system launched by National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA). Talking to Gulf News, NADRA Chairman Tariq Malik said the organisation’s goal is “to revamp Pakistan’s identification system into a robust citizen-centric system rolling out digital public goods.” He believes that technology that can’t empower ordinary people and enhance the state’s capacity to deliver on the social contract is meaningless.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, who believes that digitalisation is key to ensure transparency in the system, appreciated the transformative initiative by NADRA and described it as a “revolutionary step in providing convenience, especially to overseas Pakistanis.”

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App Annie will pay $10 million to settle a fraud investigation with the SEC

The Verge

App Annie, a company that collects and sells information about the performance of mobile apps, has agreed to pay $10 million to settle a securities fraud investigation, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said in a statement.

According to the SEC, App Annie used confidential information from app companies to generate its statistical models of app performance. It told the companies the data they provided would be aggregated and anonymized, and not disclosed to third parties.

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China Slows Game Approvals to Enforce Strict New Rules

Bloomberg

Chinese regulators are reviewing new games to determine whether they meet stricter criteria around content and protections for kids, people familiar with the matter said, an effort that’s likely to slow rollouts in the world’s largest mobile arena.

The National Press and Publication Administration is re-assessing titles submitted for approval by developers from Tencent Holdings Ltd. to Netease Inc. to ensure they comply with fresh curbs on playing time and other anti-addiction safeguards unveiled in August, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential matters.

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MEF