• by Wendy Davis , February 10, 2026

The tech industry organization Computer & Communications Industry Association on Monday urged a federal judge in Utah to enjoin enforcement of the state's new App Store Accountability Act, which requires app distributors like Google and Apple to verify users' ages and then block minors under 18 from downloading apps without parental permission.

The group characterizes the law as "a sweeping censorship regime," writing that it infringes the "First Amendment rights of app developers to distribute their speech, as well as the rights of both adults and minors to access and create a wealth of protected speech as users of the regulated app stores and apps."

Utah lawmakers passed the law in March 2025, and the key provisions are slated to take effect this May.

Last week, the Computer & Communications Industry Association sued over the law, arguing it violates the First Amendment. On Monday, the group officially sought a court order prohibiting state officials from enforcing the measure.

"The speech burdens the law places on app stores, developers, minors, parents, and other adult users are wildly disproportionate to any interest the state seeks to serve," the group writes in its request to block enforcement.

"Worse, those burdens are unnecessary because app stores already offer robust parental controls that empower parents to achieve the Act’s supposed purpose without state-mandated restrictions on the dissemination of speech," the group adds.

The organization says in its request for an injunction that apps often have the same content as websites, but optimized for mobile devices.

"That app stores are teeming with protected speech cannot be overstated," the group writes, adding that some of the most downloaded apps include Meta's Threads and Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, WhatsApp and the streaming services Tubi, Peacock and Pluto TV.

The group notes that the Supreme Court in 2011 struck down a California law that would have banned the sale of violent video games to minors, without parental consent. The court said in that case that minors have "significant" First Amendment protections, and that states don't have a “free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."

Texas and Louisiana have both passed laws similar to Utah's, and federal lawmakers have introduced comparable national legislation.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association and the student group Students Engaged in Advancing Texas sued over that state's law, and late last year obtained an injunction blocking enforcement.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman in Austin ruled in that matter that the Texas statute may have "some compelling applications," but is too broad to be constitutional.

For instance, he wrote, "nothing suggests Texas’s interest in preventing minors from accessing a wide variety of apps that foster protected speech (such as the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, Substack, or Sports Illustrated) is compelling."

Texas has appealed the ruling to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.