一句话：开发 iOS 广告审计工具 iAdAuditor，首次大规模揭示 iOS 应用中滥用性广告行为。
移动应用内广告激增带来不当内容、安全风险与欺骗性做法等问题。已有研究多聚焦 Android，iOS 尚缺乏系统性考察。本文提出 iAdAuditor，一个面向 iOS 应用的专用广告审计工具，并对 6000 多款热门 iOS 应用开展实证分析。结果显示：超过 3% 的广告多媒体材料含露骨内容，14.9% 的广告采用欺骗性策略，20% 的应用推广内容不适合特定年龄。作者希望为 Apple、广告网络、开发者与第三方审计者提供实证洞察与工具，以识别、衡量并缓解相关问题，推动更负责任、安全且以用户为中心的移动应用生态。
Mobile app usage has surged globally, leading to the proliferation of in-app advertising. However, this business model introduces significant challenges, including inappropriate ad content in children's apps, security risks, and deceptive practices. While extensive research has examined abusive ad practices in Android apps, iOS remains largely unexplored. Our study addresses this critical gap by developing iAdAuditor, a specialized ad auditing tool for iOS apps. Through a comprehensive empirical analysis of over 6,000 top-listed iOS apps, we reveal concerning patterns of abusive ad practices: over 3% of ad multimedia materials contain explicit content, 14.9% of ads employ deceptive tactics, and 20% of app promotions are age-inappropriate. By extending ad scrutiny to iOS, our work aims to equip stakeholders in the mobile advertising industry—Apple, ad network companies, developers, and third-party auditors—with empirical insights and robust tools to better identify, measure, and mitigate these issues, ultimately contributing to fostering a more responsible, secure, and user-centric mobile app ecosystem.
DOI 原文 ·
@inproceedings{paperbot9008,
title = {Are iOS Apps Immune to Abusive Advertising Practices?},
author = {Tianming Liu and Jiapeng Deng and Yanjie Zhao and Xiao Chen and Xiaoning Du and Li Li and Haoyu Wang},
booktitle = {FSE},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.1145/3696630.3728571}
}