Does the app world need regulating?

You’ve got an app for this and an app for that, but which of these have you actually downloaded successfully and then become bored with before trying to get a refund from your provider? While such behaviour is foreign to most of us, our recent industry experience with one communication service provider (CSP) suggests that there are so many claims of failed downloads that it could have cost up to £6m of revenue in fraudulent claim back activity.

 

The challenge is that there’s no standard for apps, downloads or any other media that is available to all CSP’s, media owners and intermediaries to validate what is downloaded when its supplied by someone out of the core network. In many cases all that is received is the company name and the money claimed by the intermediary or asset owner – this breakdown in information flow and metadata is where the problem lies.

 

 

With the proliferation of developers producing apps, content and other digital assets, there needs to be a global standard that all relevant parties sign up to in order to transact and undertake business. The developers, distributors, deliverers, device producers and recipients all expect and need a framework – yet getting them together to agree this across the plethora of formats is a real challenge. 

 

Whatever one business determines is right for their needs, the next business will have a different view. Agreement may be reached on a quorum of metadata definitions and standards, but not everyone will push for these to be supplied or even subscribe to them. Indeed, research into the success, or perhaps failure, of provider-run schemes highlights this fact recognising "a poor track record with this type of industry consortium".

 

 

Only last month, the BBC reported 24 of the largest CSP’s had linked up to accelerate the supply of applications to add to the watch list for failed consortia, whilst the operating platform market followed the general trend of consolidation seen elsewhere in the technology sector to compete. This isn’t the first industry to suffer from this problem, and it won’t be the last. 

 

A resolution to this problem requires the creation of a body to leverage and guard this taxonomy on behalf of all of the stakeholders. It needs to be an organisation that’s in it for the long haul, and that holds expertise in managing a vast network that an entire business sector relies upon.