Consequences of GDPR – How the EU-GDPR affected Entry, Exit, and Privacy in the Market for Mobile Smartphone Apps

The enactment of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the European Union has been the largest regulatory intervention in the recent history of data-driven (online) markets. We study the effect of the GDPR on the market of mobile smartphone applications. Specifically, we analyze how the enactment of the regulation has affected exit, entry, and concentration in this market. First results indicate that the enactment had a drastic effect on entry and exit in the mobile apps market. We show that most of the exiting apps were small apps by small developers. We further study average experienced intrusiveness by users. We find a decreasing trend before GDPR, but no clear effect after it was enacted. Finally, we analyze whether this pattern has affected market concentration and find no clear patterns.