Person playing game on mobile phone

Gamifying Private and Ethical Ad Donation

Team: Rafiq Copeland, Linton Charles, Sanushka Das, Kaixin Ji, Xiyao Liu, and Edward Small
Mentor: Dr Damiano Spina

SUMMARY OF IDEA

Ninety-four percent (94%) of Facebook ads are served on mobile, and for Instagram and TikTok this figure is effectively 100%. The project aims to address the problem of privacy and ethical concerns of collecting mobile data by gamifying the data donation experience. Donators review in their mobile game the ads they want to share/donate. Those ads are then shipped to the data donation platform and traded for credits. In this way, donors have complete agency of the data that is being donated.

Credits can be used to feed and customise a pet or used in external video-games or streaming services. The proposed mobile game also includes mini-games to improve the digital literacy of donors, e.g., quizzes and interaction with insights to learn about their own targeted advertising profile and unlock bonus features.

PRESENTATION

  • 94% of Facebook ads are served on mobile. For Instagram and TikTok this figure is effectively 100%. We’re in the dark.
  • Technical Barriers. Privacy and Ethical Concerns. We need informed, active and ongoing consent.
  • DARK ADS Mobile Game Feed the Light to Light your Feed
  • DARK ADS: A Mobile Game Light up the web by collecting your ads and trading them for credits. Solve mini-games to learn about your own targeted advertising profile and unlock bonus features.
  • Phone with picture of digital pet needing food
  • Phone with pictures of a digital pet
  • Diagram of how the data donation would work
  • Benefits to Users: Personalised Transparency, Digital Literacy, Privacy, Agency, Fun, Credits
  • Benefits to Researchers: Mobile Ad Data, Multiple Ad Platforms, user in the loop, Mixed Methods, Wide Sample Group
  • Benefits to Policy Makers: Evidence Base Informed users
  • Dark Ads Mobile Game: Feed the light to light your feed

Download a PDF version of the Presentation: Gamifying Private and Ethical Data donation

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

THE TEAM

Participants from Team 6 at the Dark Ads Hackathon

Credit: Rafiq Copeland, Linton Charles, Sanushka Das, Kaixin Ji, Xiyao Liu, Edward Small and Dr Damiano Spina.

Suggested Citation: Copeland, R., Charles, L., Das, S., Ji, K., Liu, X., Small, E, and Spina, D. (2022). Tech for Good: ADM+S Dark Ads Hackathon. Gamifying Private and Ethical Ad Donation. Australian Research Council Centre for Automated Decision-Making and Society.

CONTACT US

If you are interested in collaborating on this research or speaking with this hackathon team contact adms@rmit.edu.au