ASFA and OAMA Child Safety Coalition Letter

Today, I sent a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the Bull Moose Project’s support of the App Store Freedom Act and Open App Markets Act.

To the members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee:

Ahead of tomorrow's Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee hearing, I'm pleased to share the attached letter from a coalition of child-safety and consumer advocacy organizations in support of the App Store Freedom Act (H.R. 3209), sponsored by Reps. Cammack and Trahan, and its Senate counterpart, the Open App Markets Act (S. 2153).

Apple and Google claim their app store monopolies keep kids safe. Their track records prove the opposite. Investigations by the Tech Transparency Project revealed both app stores are riddled with nudify apps that have been downloaded hundreds of millions of times. Worse, Apple and Google actively steered users to those apps and profited from them.

Without competition, Apple and Google have little incentive to enhance safety and security for families. ASFA and OAMA would empower parents by allowing them to disable the Apple and Google app stores and designate an alternative that caters specifically to the needs of parents and children. Contrary to false claims about the legislation, nothing in either bill weakens or overrides existing parental controls. The bills enjoy bipartisan support in both chambers: a prior version of OAMA cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee 20–2 in 2022.