Tim Cook pressure looms over key vote on children’s online safety

As Congress met to vote on the future of children’s online safety, the most spirited debate of the day was over a bill that wasn’t on the agenda and Apple CEO Tim Cook wasn’t on the agenda.

18 bills aimed at regulating the internet to protect children are now headed to a vote before the full Energy and Commerce Committee, possibly as soon as next month. From there, the bills could get a vote in the House, giving the chamber a chance to set the tone on online safety legislation after a major bill passed by the Senate was left without a vote last year. At the same time, several panelists expressed suspicion that big tech lobbyists had infiltrated the proposals and limited their scope, resulting in solutions that fail to get to the core issues that make children unsafe online.

The package includes a copy of the Senate’s main bill, the Children’s Online Safety Act (KOSA). But that’s what supporters say He was injected with poison So bad that it may actually make matters worse, effectively wiping out a list of state laws that could even include some general consumer protection rules. The once bipartisan KOSA exited the subcommittee with Republican majority support on a party-line vote, after former co-sponsor Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) criticized the changes and accused Republicans of turning their backs on parent advocates. Lead sponsor and subcommittee Chairman Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) introduced a revised version of the bill that made some small revisions based on parent input, and said he was open to continuing to work with them moving forward. The Children’s and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), once a relatively uncontroversial and popular children’s privacy bill, received a party-line vote in a subcommittee after adding a sweeping provision to state law similar to KOSA.

But the most interesting part of the three-hour meeting was involved Cook’s surprise visit With the committee chairs on Wednesday. While discussing one of the two bills they take different approaches to it Implement age recognition protocols at the App Store levelRep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) expressed regret that the subcommittee did not address this matter App Store Freedom Act She co-sponsored it with Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA). The bill will force companies like Apple and Google to allow users to download alternative app stores and set them as the default store. Trahan and Cammack say this will allow parents to set app stores with only kid-friendly apps as the default on their devices, avoiding the problem of knowing which apps in the general app store to allow kids to download.

“The App Store Freedom Act would address (a lot of) this. Because our bill would allow parents to create a marketplace where they would have apps that they know are safe for kids,” Cammack said. “Today, you don’t have the opportunity to build your own marketplace. Instead, we’re having discussions about whether or not we should empower Apple and Google to be responsible for verifying the age of these children.” This is equivalent to “asking the fox to guard the hen house,” Cammack said. “The same people who have very poor records in protecting children online, we’re now saying you’ll be responsible for their data and age verification, but you should still continue to use our app store and use our marketplace.”

Both Cammack and Trahan portrayed other proposals before the committee as well-intentioned, but ultimately marginal. “We need to address the problem of app store and marketplace disruption,” Cammack said. “A monopoly is not going to fix it.” Trahan agreed, saying: “Should we be collecting data at the device level? Should we be ensuring age or verification at the app store level or developer level? How about we just enforce the antitrust laws we have on the books and eventually stop giving Google and Apple the sole ability to build a mobile store for our kids.”

Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), the full committee chairman who met with Cook on Wednesday, acknowledged that the App Store Freedom Act has been brought up in the discussion and that Apple is not a fan of it. But Guthrie insisted the meeting had nothing to do with why the bill was not included in the markup. He noted that Apple had concerns about other bills that were included in the coding, an apparent reference to App Store age verification bills that the company has generally opposed on privacy and data collection grounds. Apple did not immediately respond Edge Request for comment.

Guthrie said he approached sponsors in good faith, but wanted to keep that coding focused on child safety, and their bill would allow many other types of third-party app stores beyond those focused on children, which requires further study. He also noted that some of the bill’s topics appear to fit in a different committee, which could raise a question about the jurisdiction of where they should be debated.

“From where we sit, you have to understand that just as Apple came to the top yesterday as we were discussing this set of legislation, and this bill, which I’m sure is the one that was fought so hard by Apple and Google at the top of their list, it’s suspicious that we’re not discussing it as much as others,” Trahan said. “All of the bills we are discussing today, they need work before we go to full committee, but this one is not even allowed to be discussed or debated, and that generates little doubt.”

Guthrie told the shepherds he had no ulterior motives, and both Cammack and Trahan said they believed he was an honest person. “I don’t think the people on this committee are acting in bad faith,” Cammack said. “I think the people acting in bad faith are Apple.”