Without any major announcement, Google has ended the time of its audience measurement app, Screenwise Meter as well as its rewards program. Users of the program who are set to receive incentives for letting the app record their web browsing habits are told to delete the app from the devices and claim their rewards within the next month. The somewhat controversial app was a source of contention between Apple and Google last year when the latter improperly distributed the app on iOS devices.
If you’re not familiar with Screenwise Meter, it functions somewhat similarly to ratings companies like Nielsen. Its goal is to record their web browsing habits of a user for research purposes. In return, they are given some incentives and rewards for somehow giving up their privacy when using the Internet. Last year, Apple criticized Google for improper distribution of the app to iOS devices by using an enterprise certificate that is meant for internal dogfooding (testing out a product internally first, in case you didn’t know).
According to Android Police, users of Screenwise Meter are now advised to offload the app from their devices. Recently, they’ve also notified Audience Measurement panelists that their activity is no longer being monitored as the program has been canceled already. They are given until next month to claim their rewards, with dates differing depending on the area. Some are given December 2 and some have a December 3 deadline.
For those that have more than $5 on their rewards balance can redeem their incentives with gift cards. Those who have less than $5 will receive an Amazon gift card in their account. While their activities are not being monitored anymore, it’s still a good idea to delete the app to make space for other apps and files on your smartphone and also just to make sure that the app is not going beyond its scope, just in case.
There doesn’t seem to be any replacement to this audience measurement program or any rewards program for research. So we’ll assume for now that Screenwise Meter is just officially dead.
