A Scroll Down Memory Lane: Spring 2025’s Member Mondays
ACT | The App Association’s members are at the forefront of innovation, leveraging technology to create meaningful solutions that drive positive change. Each week, we spotlight these trailblazing small businesses through our Member Monday series. This spring, our Member Monday features highlighted how our global small tech members are not only building impactful products and services, but they’re also shaping key policy conversations, from platform fairness and green innovation to the future of mergers and acquisitions in the digital [...]
To Win the AI Race, Congress Must Learn from Europe’s Missteps
America’s AI leadership wasn’t accidental. It came from businesses, small and large, solving problems using the tools available to them in a policy environment that fostered innovation. Now, with global competition heating up, Congress has a chance to reinforce that success. On May 8, 2025, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing titled "Winning the AI Race: Strengthening U.S. Capabilities in Computing and Innovation." The focus was on how America can lock in its AI leadership by removing barriers [...]
Advancing SEP Policy and Innovation Opportunity in India
This April, ACT | The App Association spent 10 days in India meeting with policymakers, regulators, and stakeholders to make the case for a fair, pro-innovation national stance on standard-essential patent (SEP) licensing. For small tech companies and independent app developers, SEP policy can feel distant, but it has real-world impacts. SEPs are patents that cover technologies deemed essential to a standard (like 5G or Wi-Fi) and must be licensed by innovators building new technologies that utilize those standards. [...]
Into the Metaverse: The Money and Motivations Behind Meta’s App Store Gambit
In May 2025, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Representative John James (R-MI) introduced the App Store Accountability Act (ASAA), a bill that would require app stores to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for users under 18. Meta has bankrolled a wildly expensive lobbying campaign to enact ASAA and its state-level analogs, and instead of recoiling in horror at taking kid privacy advice from Meta, some lawmakers are credulously going along with it. And what state legislators [...]