The ABC’s of Age Verification in the United States
 Part One of ACT | The App Association’s Two-Part Series: The ABCs and 1-2-3s of Age Verification and Compliance Lawmakers across the United States are introducing a wave of age verification and parental consent laws aimed at protecting kids online. While well-intentioned, these state-by-state approaches create a confusing and costly patchwork for startups and independent developers. And, as we have seen in other efforts to use age verification methods, the very people these laws aim to protect often become [...]
ACT Unites Worldwide Associations in Supporting Encryption
 Encryption is crucial to the global digital economy. If online services cannot use strong technical protection mechanisms like encryption, users of those services would not be able to trust that their sensitive data, including financial and health information, is safe from bad actors. Unfortunately, policymakers around the world continue to seek to undermine encryption through requirements to introduce backdoors into encrypted services despite ample evidence—like the Salt Typhoon attacks in late 2024—that backdoors always compromise security. That is why [...]
OpenAI’s App Store Moment Highlights the Shifting Nature of the Digital Marketplace
 OpenAI’s recent announcement that developers could now build and publish apps directly inside ChatGPT became another clear sign of how quickly digital markets evolve. At its DevDay 2025 event, the company revealed a new Apps SDK that lets partners like Canva, Coursera, and Zillow create interactive apps inside ChatGPT. With more than 800 million weekly users, ChatGPT is quickly becoming a new distribution channel in the app economy. Digital markets are fast-changing and the boundaries, and contours of software [...]
When Regulators Undermine Their Own Consumer Protection Goals
 Recent scrutiny of digital platforms’ practices in the European Union has resurfaced a persistent tension: how can governments impose sweeping open access mandates on digital platforms while simultaneously allowing for the proactive gating measures necessary to detect, prevent, and remedy online scams and fraud? Meanwhile, the emergence of particularly troubling details around seemingly simple social engineering attacks is intensifying the need for policymakers in the European Union to adequately answer the consumer protection question. Certainly, they would say that [...]
ACT Fights Back Against Digital Trade Barriers Around the World
 Just before Halloween, ACT | The App Association filed extensive comments with the United States Trade Representative (USTR) as the agency prepares its annual edition of the National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE Report) for Congress. Every year, USTR publishes a new NTE Report identifying laws and policies of countries around the world that act as significant barriers to U.S. exports of goods and services or U.S. foreign direct investment. And every year, ACT makes sure [...]