Today, ACT | The App Association released the following statement on the recently introduced California Assembly Bill 1043 – The Digital Age Assurance Act:
“To effectively protect our children online, policy options must work in the real world, not just in theory. Proposals such as AB 1043, that put the liability for potential harms to children that result from the use of social media on app stores and small business app developers, would not be effective in protecting the most vulnerable internet users,” said Morgan Reed, President of ACT | The App Association. “California Assembly Bill 1043 would shield applications and services with a history of malfeasance and shift liability and compliance costs to small app companies via hardware and the app stores. This legislation is based on a misguided belief that a variety of effective parental controls for smart devices do not already exist. This proposal would likely enmesh the effective tools that are currently available for parents in a tangle of complicated compliance processes and bureaucratic red tape.”
This legislation provides a safe harbor for large social media companies at the expense of app developers and parents in need of simple tools that actually work. Developers across this country are already working to continuously improve parental control tools — not to meet compliance objectives but because it’s the right thing to do, and that’s what American families expect. This broad, one-size-fits-all policy proposal will serve to shackle hard-working innovators and provide additional barriers for California-based small businesses to grow and maintain the Golden State’s status as a hub for technological innovation and entrepreneurship.
The California Assembly should focus on holding the right actors accountable — not punishing the builders of safe, educational, and values-driven applications that improve our lives and help families thrive.
About ACT | The App Association & Members
The App Association is a global trade association for small and medium-sized technology companies. Our members are entrepreneurs, innovators, and independent developers within the global app ecosystem that engage with verticals across every industry. We work with and for our members to promote a policy environment that rewards and inspires innovation while providing resources that help them raise capital, create jobs, and continue to build incredible technology.
For more information, please visit www.actonline.org.