Smartphones have become a critical part of daily life. They have a wide variety of uses, including language acquisition. Language learning applications often rely on freemium business models, offering free access supplemented by advertising, which sell features, namely removal of advertisements for a premium price. There are a few apps well-regarded by the general public, namely Duolingo, Busuu, and Memrise. All of these apps contain free tiers supported by advertising.
This study aims to investigate and experimentally verify the ad removal claims of these apps using network forensic techniques. It will analyze the advertising done on the apps and the user data collected and transmitted on the Apple iOS platform. The experimentation will utilize common iOS network packet sniffers, such as WiresharkHelper and Storm Sniffer, to analyze network traffic emitted by these apps to search for evidence of connections to ad trackers in premium versions. Connecting to trackers usually means that user data may be collected and sold for targeted advertising. Our forensic findings indicates that despite the claims of lack of ads, these apps still collect and send user data to ad trackers in their premium versions in contrary to what they market to the user.
