Apple, Google, Meta drop Utah suit

A tech industry group representing Apple, Google, Meta and Amazon dropped its lawsuit against Utah’s app-store age-verification law on April 21. (deseret.com) (alstonprivacy.com) The plaintiff was the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which sued Utah in February 2026 to block Senate Bill 142, the App Store Accountability Act. The group argued the law violated the First Amendment by forcing age checks and parental-consent rules onto app stores and developers. (deseret.com) (ccianet.org) Utah changed the law before the case was resolved. House Bill 498, signed March 18, 2026, removed the Utah attorney general’s power to enforce the statute and pushed the compliance date back one year, to May 6, 2027. (le.utah.gov) (alstonprivacy.com) That mattered because the lawsuit targeted state enforcement by Attorney General Derek Brown. Once Utah said the law could be enforced only through private lawsuits, the trade group said its complaint had achieved its objective and dismissed the case. (deseret.com) (mediapost.com) Utah’s law still requires app stores to verify a user’s age and get parental consent before a minor can download an app, agree to terms of service or make an in-app purchase. Parents also must be told an app’s age rating and how it uses a child’s data. (deseret.com) (le.utah.gov) The 2026 amendments did not soften every part of the statute. Utah lawmakers expanded it to cover preinstalled apps, apps that later add advertising, and accounts created before the law takes effect. (deseret.com) The Utah retreat followed a separate court win in Texas. On December 23, 2025, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman preliminarily blocked Texas Senate Bill 2420, finding the law likely unconstitutional before it could take effect. (ccianet.org) (docs.reclaimthenet.org) But Utah’s posture is now different from Texas because the state no longer plans to enforce the law itself. That leaves parents and minors, not state prosecutors, as the people who could test the statute in court. (alstonprivacy.com) (deseret.com) More states are moving in the same direction. Utah was first in March 2025, and lawyers tracking the issue say Texas, Louisiana and Alabama have enacted similar app-store accountability laws with different deadlines and enforcement setups. (insideprivacy.com) (alstonprivacy.com) So the Utah case did not end with the law struck down. It ended with the state rewriting the law, the industry group walking away, and the next fight likely moving into private suits after May 6, 2027. (le.utah.gov) (deseret.com)