A coalition of major technology companies has filed a federal lawsuit against Texas over its new App Store Accountability Act, arguing that the measure violates the First Amendment by imposing sweeping age-verification and parental consent requirements.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), whose members include Apple and Google, filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. The group said the law “imposes a broad censorship regime on the entire universe of mobile apps,” requiring users to prove their age before downloading any app and mandating parental consent for minors.
“In a misguided attempt to protect minors, Texas has decided to require proof of age before anyone with a smartphone or tablet can download an app,” the CCIA wrote in its complaint. “Anyone under 18 must obtain parental consent for every app and in-app purchase they try to download—from ebooks to email to entertainment.”
The lawsuit argues that the law’s age-rating and parental consent mandates amount to unconstitutional restrictions on free speech. “Our Constitution forbids this,” the filing states. “None of our laws require businesses to “card” people before they can enter bookstores and shopping malls. The First Amendment prohibits such oppressive laws as much in cyberspace as it does in the physical world.”
The Texas App Store Accountability Act, set to take effect January 1, 2026, would require app developers to classify their content by age and notify app stores whenever updates are made. Similar measures in Utah and Louisiana are scheduled to be enforced later in 2025.
A separate lawsuit, brought by a student advocacy group and two Texas minors, also challenges the law. Their attorney, Ambika Kumar of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, said, “The First Amendment does not permit the government to require teenagers to get their parents’ permission before accessing information, except in discrete categories like obscenity.”
Both lawsuits cite the Supreme Court’s 2011 decision in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, which struck down a California law restricting minors’ access to violent video games. The Court held that states cannot broadly limit children’s exposure to ideas under the guise of protection.
Texas has faced multiple legal challenges from the tech industry over online speech laws. In 2022, the Supreme Court blocked a Texas measure limiting social media content moderation, while earlier this year, the Court upheld the state’s age-verification requirement for adult websites.
