Mobile Ad Management Application Segmentation for Privacy
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing digital advertisement systems on mobile devices face security and privacy issues due to shared access permissions between advertising SDKs and applications, manipulation of environmental and anti-fraud signals, and inefficiencies in resource utilization and error attribution, along with the need for frequent updates of advertising SDKs across multiple applications.
Innovation Solution
Implementing an ad management application on mobile devices to handle ad requests separately from ad-requesting applications, using remote procedure calls, and encrypting ad request messages to enhance security and privacy, while reducing the need for advertising SDKs within ad-requesting applications by moving their functionality to the ad management application.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If advertising SDKs are incorporated into applications, then ad serving functionality is available, but security and privacy issues arise due to shared access permissions
Solution Approach 1:
The system separates ad serving functionality into a standalone ad server that runs independently from the application. The application contains only a lightweight ad requestor that communicates with the external ad server, eliminating the need for embedded SDKs with broad permissions. This segmentation isolates the security-sensitive ad serving operations from the application's permission scope.
Solution Approach 2:
An external ad server acts as an intermediary between the application and the advertising network. The ad requestor in the application communicates ad requests to this intermediary, which then handles all interactions with supply-side platforms and ad exchanges. This intermediary architecture allows the application to maintain minimal permissions while still accessing comprehensive ad serving capabilities.
2Reliability
If duplicate advertising SDKs are included in multiple applications, then each application has independent ad serving capability, but storage resources are wasted and error attribution becomes confused
Solution Approach 1:
A single external ad server provides universal ad serving functionality for multiple applications. Instead of each application maintaining its own duplicate SDK, they all communicate with the same ad server instance. This universal architecture eliminates redundant code and resources while maintaining independent ad serving capability for each application through separate communication channels.
Solution Approach 2:
The system merges the ad serving functionality from multiple duplicate SDKs into a single shared ad server. Multiple applications share this common ad server infrastructure, which handles all ad requests, bid negotiations, and ad delivery. This consolidation reduces total storage requirements while preserving each application's ability to serve ads independently.
3Reliability
If advertising SDKs are updated, then ad serving functionality is improved, but one or more applications must be updated
Solution Approach 1:
The ad serving functionality is segmented into a separate external ad server, decoupled from the application codebase. This allows the ad server to be updated independently without requiring application updates. The application's lightweight ad requestor maintains stable interfaces while the backend ad serving logic can evolve separately.
Solution Approach 2:
The complex ad serving logic and update-prone SDK code are extracted from the application into a standalone external ad server. This extraction allows the application to remain simple and stable while the ad server handles all updates and functionality improvements independently, eliminating the coupling between application versioning and ad serving updates.
4Productivity
If advertising SDKs communicate directly with SSPs, then ad requests are processed efficiently, but manipulation of environmental and anti-fraud signals can occur
Solution Approach 1:
The ad server acts as a trusted intermediary between the application and supply-side platforms. It collects and verifies environmental signals and anti-fraud data through controlled interfaces, preventing manipulation by either the application or external SSPs. The intermediary architecture maintains signal integrity while preserving efficient ad request processing through optimized communication protocols.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques for increasing security and privacy while requesting digital advertisements for mobile applications are provided. Such techniques use a separate ad management application on the same mobile computing device as an ad-requesting application to receive an ad request and to provide an ad response that provides digital ad assets to the ad-requesting application. The ad request and the ad response may be remote procedure calls. To obtain and provide the digital ad assets of a digital advertisement, the ad management application generates an ad request message based upon the ad request (which may include augmenting the ad request), sending the ad request message to a supply-side platform (SSP) of a digital advertising network, receiving an ad response message including the digital ad assets from the SSP, and sending the ad response with the digital ad assets to the ad-requesting application for display to a user of the mobile computing device.