the 14 million users were men between the ages of 18 and 34. In September 2020, a survey found that 18.8 percent of consumers in the United States and United Kingdom strongly agreed that they had noticed an increase of QR code use since the then-active COVID-19 related restrictions had begun several months prior. Standards There are several standards that cover the encoding of data as QR codes: October 1997AIM (Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility) International January 1999JIS X 0510 June 2000ISO/IEC 18004:2000 Information technologyAutomatic identification and data capture techniquesBar code symbologyQR code (now withdrawn) Defines QR code models 1 and 2 symbols. 1 September 2006ISO/IEC 18004:2006 Information technologyAutomatic identification and data capture techniquesQR code 2005 bar code symbology specification (now withdrawn) Defines QR code 2005 symbols, an extension of QR code model 2. Does not specify how to read QR code model 1 symbols, or require this for compliance. 1 February 2015ISO/IEC 18004:2015 InformationAutomatic identification and data capture techniquesQR Code barcode symbology specification Renames the QR Code 2005 symbol to QR Code and adds clarification to some procedures and minor corrections. May 2022ISO/IEC 23941:2022 Information technologyAutomatic identification and data capture techniquesRectangular Micro QR Code (rMQR) bar code symbology specificationDefines the requirements for Micro QR Code. At the application layer, there is some variation between most of the implementations. Japan's NTT DoCoMo has established de facto standards for the encoding of URLs, contact information, and several other data types. The open-source "ZXing" project maintains a list of QR code data types. Uses QR codes have become common in consumer advertising. Typically, a smartphone is used as a QR code scanner, displaying the code and converting it to some useful form (such as a standard URL for a website, thereby obviating the need for a user to type it into a web browser). QR code has become a focus of advertising strategy, since it provides a way to access a brand's website more quickly than by manually entering a URL. Beyond mere convenience to the consumer, the importance of this capability is that it increases the conversion rate: the chance that contact with the advertisement will convert to a sale. It coaxes interested prospects further down the conversion funnel with little delay or effort, bringing the viewer to the advertiser's website immediately, whereas a longer and more targeted sales pitch may lose the viewer's interest. Although initially used to track