The current app store ecosystem is a constantly evolving marketplace that offers consumers an unprecedented range of choices, features, and protections. Competing platforms regularly update their tools to improve user safety, enhance privacy and security protections, and support new kinds of apps. The result is an ecosystem that drives innovation and delivers consumers with the kind of cutting-edge technology they prefer.
In this kind of a dynamic market, businesses compete by building better products. However, instead of investing in innovation, some companies are turning to Washington to push legislation and regulations that weaken the platforms consumers trust in order to gain a business advantage. While this strategy is not new and has been deployed by firms over the years in a variety of industries, some companies are using this playbook to rewrite the rules that app stores follow to provide consumers a convenient and safe experience.
Concerningly, many of these ideas would break the very platforms that millions of users rely on for secure, privacy-protecting, and convenient access to apps. Take, for example, the wave of age verification proposals being considered at the state and federal levels under the guise of children’s safety. These bills are often pushed by different industries, from dating apps to adult content providers, that do not want to make the changes to their platforms that would protect their users. Instead, they want to require others to verify users’ ages before granting access to common apps, often through government-issued IDs or third-party data brokers. These proposals often require companies to collect more data from users, raising serious privacy concerns.
Two other bills, the Open App Markets Act and the App Store Freedom Act, have been pitched as consumer-friendly reforms. In reality, these proposals would benefit a handful of large app developers at consumers’ expense. Both bills would force mobile platforms to tear down core security measures and allow virtually any app, no matter how risky, to bypass vetting, and they threaten to break many of the tools app stores provide that benefit small developers. This would make it harder for platforms to block malicious software, harder to enforce data privacy standards, and harder to protect users, especially kids, from fraud, tracking, and exploitation.
Together, these proposals, from new app store regulations to mandatory age verification, paint a troubling picture of a policy landscape that talks about protecting consumers but often ends up undermining the very tools that do. Concerningly, these efforts often take a sledgehammer to the entire platform ecosystem, weakening the trust and reliability that consumers depend on.
Strong competition is essential to a healthy and dynamic app store ecosystem. But real competition happens through better products, not by gutting the protections that make platforms safe. Policymakers should be building a future where American tech leads the world in safety, transparency, and innovation, not one where security and privacy are sacrificed to boost the margins of a few powerful players. Washington should protect what works.