Meta has joined forces with Spotify, Garmin, Match, and others to form a lobby group to represent their interests, especially as they come into conflict with those of Apple and Google. The group’s first order of business is arguing that age verification should be the responsibility of app stores, and not the apps themselves.
Bloomberg reports that the Coalition for a Competitive Mobile Experience will fight for app makers’ interests on a range of fronts, including ensuring that Apple and Google products work well with rivals’ devices and software, fighting what’s perceived as discrimination from the App Store and Play Store, and aiding the Justice Department in its ongoing antitrust cases against Apple and Google.
“What these founding companies share in common is they rely on the mobile ecosystem in order to serve their customers,” Brandon Kressin, the director of the coalition, told Bloomberg. “They each recognize there’s power in numbers, especially when going up against companies as powerful as the duopoly.”
Right now, the group’s priority is joining Meta’s ongoing efforts to persuade lawmakers that app stores should bear the responsibility for controlling which apps children can download, saving the apps themselves from the brunt of age verification. Google, for its part, says Meta is trying to “offload” its responsibility to keep kids safe. Utah has already passed a law requiring app stores to verify user ages, and the new coalition intends to support similar bills in other states, and efforts to introduce equivalents in the House and Senate.
The new coalition announced itself just hours before Apple suffered a major defeat in its ongoing litigation against Epic. The judge ruled that Apple is no longer allowed to collect fees on purchases made outside apps or restrict how developers can direct users to other payment options.
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