Caught between tightening privacy regulations and ever-growing demands for acquisition, conversion, and monetisation, mobile apps today are walking a tightrope. Striking the right balance between compliance, user experience, and business performance is no longer optional, it’s mission-critical.
Speaking at two flagship events for the mobile ecosystem (Mobilis in Mobile in Nantes and the App Growth Summit in Berlin), Jerome Perani, Chief Revenue Officer at Axeptio, put the spotlight on a challenge that’s quietly reshaping the app development landscape. In a context of globally enforced privacy laws and shifting technical standards from one country to another, consent management can no longer be an afterthought. It needs to be designed as a smooth, geo-adaptive journey, baked into the onboarding experience from day one.
Regulators Tighten the Net: Europe’s Privacy Playbook Goes Worldwide
The days when mobile apps could fly under the radar of data protection laws are well and truly over.
Today, 71% of countries worldwide have already passed GDPR-style data privacy legislation, and another 9% are actively working on it. In other words, the regulatory wave is global, and no company with a digital footprint — be it a website or a mobile app — is safe.
Europe, unsurprisingly, is leading the charge, setting a high bar that’s becoming the gold standard across continents: consent must be explicit, freely given, informed, traceable, specific, reversible, and obtained without dark patterns or coercion.
“In this context, mobile apps, which were once seen as loosely regulated compared to websites, are now fully within the GDPR’s crosshairs — and increasingly under the watchful eye of regulators. Just look at Voodoo’s €3 million fine from the CNIL for collecting user browsing data for advertising purposes without proper consent.” — Jerome Perani, CRO at Axeptio.
Breaking Down the Consent Maze: When Legal, Technical, and Business Worlds Collide
On top of these legal obligations, app developers now face an ecosystem that’s as intricate as it is confusing, where various consent-related mechanisms overlap, each with its own logic and often misunderstood by both users and professionals alike.
Think of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT), the operating system permissions (location, camera, microphone access), and Consent Management Platforms (CMPs). They all coexist, but they’re far from interchangeable.
Take ATT, for instance. Apple’s prompt informs users that an app wants to track their activity for advertising purposes. But this is done in Apple’s format, at Apple’s convenience, and primarily limits the data that can be shared with third parties. It is not a mechanism for obtaining GDPR-compliant consent. Similarly, when an app asks for access to your GPS, camera, or microphone, it’s a technical prerequisite, not a privacy safeguard.
Without a dedicated and compliant module to handle consent — one that clearly explains data usage purposes and provides proof of consent — apps fall short of their regulatory duties. Only a CMP can bridge this gap. And as the numbers show, failing to make this distinction also hurts business performance.
“On average, consent rates through ATT hover around 50%,according to AppsFlyer. By contrast, CMPs often reach between 65% and 83%. This is not just a compliance issue — it’s a critical onboarding and conversion lever.” — Jerome Perani
Meanwhile, other tech giants are tightening the screws. Google, too, is raising the bar, making access to its products contingent on robust consent management. To activate Google Ads, Analytics, AdSense, or AdMob, mobile apps are now required to implement Consent Mode v2, integrated via a certified CMP (such as Axeptio). This is not merely a technicality — it’s a business imperative for tracking marketing performance and, ultimately, app profitability.
One World, Many Rules: Why Global Apps Need Geo-Smart Onboarding
For a long time, Europe was seen as the outlier — the strict privacy enforcer in a world of lax standards. That’s no longer the case. In the United States, California’s CCPA (enacted in 2020) has paved the way for a flurry of local privacy laws, rapidly redrawing the data protection map.
Unlike the GDPR’s strict opt-in approach, most U.S. regulations follow an opt-out model: users must be given the option to refuse data sharing, but their explicit consent isn’t mandatory upfront. Under the CCPA, for example, apps can place certain trackers without prior approval, provided there’s a visible “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” link, and a clear, documented path to opt out.
But the U.S. is just one piece of a broader regulatory mosaic. From country to country, consent requirements vary wildly. Five major regulatory zones are now emerging, each with its own rules and expectations.
As these constraints multiply and fragment, one thing becomes abundantly clear: the days of one-size-fits-all onboarding are over. Apps must now build dynamic onboarding flows that adjust to the user’s location, language, local regulations, and even marketing preferences. In short, a smart, CMP-powered system that recognises who the user is and delivers the right message, at the right moment, in the right way.
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