A Scroll Down Membership Lane: March 2026’s Member Mondays
ACT’s members drive the innovation that powers our digital world. Each month, through our Member Monday series, we showcase these trailblazing small businesses and their cutting-edge achievements. Around the world, governments are advancing age verification and online safety requirements with the goal of protecting young users online. Unfortunately, these mandates have often fallen short of improving safety in practice, while expanding the amount of sensitive data companies are expected to collect and handle. That shift can push startups to [...]
Founders Bring the SME POV to Brussels @GAEC: EU 2026
ACT’s Annual Global App Economy Conferences (GAECs) bring our startup and small tech members together for three days of founder-to-founder networking and direct engagement with policymakers. GAECs are the culmination of what we do at ACT, bringing our three pillars together in one event that fosters community, provides resources and education, and creates an opportunity for our startup, scaleup, and small business members to engage directly in advocacy. Throughout the year, ACT hosts three GAECs: one in the EU, [...]
Always Be Filing: ACT Filing Activity March 2026
Throughout the year, our policy team submits filings with government bodies worldwide to advocate for a regulatory environment that inspires and rewards innovation. From issues around regulating artificial intelligence to digital trade, our team is ACTive on a wide range of topics that could have a positive or negative impact on our small business members driving the app economy. Below is a roundup of our filings from around the globe this past month. Title: ACT’s Letter to the Senate Commerce [...]
ACT at the FTC: Why Blanket Age Verification Mandates Miss the Mark
As policymakers consider new online safety proposals, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently convened a workshop to examine the evolving landscape of age verification, estimation, and assurance tools, legislative proposals centered around their use, and the interplay between emerging age authentication frameworks and existing regulations, such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule. During the workshop, FTC attorneys moderated a wide-ranging discussion featuring industry and policy leaders: Graham Dufault, General Counsel, ACT | The App [...]
California’s Merger Proposals Could Set Back the Startup Economy by a Generation
On March 20, the California Law Revision Commission (CLRC) held a meeting to discuss draft proposals that would fundamentally reshape the state's approach to mergers and acquisitions. The proposals aim to establish a California-specific antitrust regime that departs from established federal law, an approach the proposal's own authors described as a "sea change" meant to be untethered from federal precedent. As the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) detailed in a follow-up letter submitted to the Commission this week, the [...]