According to The Verge, at a three-hour congressional meeting on Wednesday to advance kids’ online safety bills, the most heated debate centered on Apple CEO Tim Cook’s surprise visit and a bill that wasn’t even being voted on. The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee advanced 18 bills, including versions of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and COPPA 2.0, but both passed on party-line votes after controversial changes. The notable absence was the App Store Freedom Act, co-sponsored by Reps. Kat Cammack (R-FL) and Lori Trahan (D-MA), which would force Apple and Google to allow alternative app stores. Full committee chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), who met with Cook, admitted the bill came up but denied it was excluded due to lobbying, a claim the sponsors openly questioned.
The Fox Guarding the Henhouse
Here’s the core argument from Cammack and Trahan, and it’s a compelling one. The other bills on the docket largely focus on making Apple and Google the gatekeepers for age verification and data collection at the app store level. Cammack called this “asking the fox to guard the hen house.” Their point is, why are we drafting complex rules to empower the very platforms with a spotty track record on kids’ safety, instead of just breaking their monopoly control?
Their App Store Freedom Act takes a totally different tack. It wouldn’t just create a kid-friendly section within Apple’s App Store. It would let a parent download a whole separate, curated app store—vetted by a third party or even a school district—and set it as the *default* on their child’s device. No more wrestling with parental controls inside a massive, general-purpose marketplace. It’s a neat idea that reframes the problem from “how do we filter this big store” to “why can’t we just install a better, safer store?”
Suspicious Timing and Political Poison
Now, the politics here are messy. The once-bipartisan KOSA is now seen by many Democrats as “poison-pilled” because the new version could wipe out stronger state laws. So there’s already a feeling that the solutions moving forward are weakened. Into that atmosphere walks Tim Cook for a meeting with the committee chair. And then the one bill that directly attacks Apple and Google’s core business model—their walled-garden app stores—gets left off the voting agenda.
You don’t have to be a cynic to see why Trahan said the proximity “breeds a bit of suspicion.” Guthrie’s defense was that their bill went beyond just kid-safe stores and raised jurisdictional questions. But come on. In a markup with 18 bills on internet regulation, you’re telling me the one that would actually introduce competition to the mobile duopoly is suddenly “out of scope”? It looks bad. And it lets lawmakers like Cammack make the sharp political point: “I think the people acting in bad faith [are] Apple.”
The Real Trade-Off Here
So what’s the real hurdle? It’s the classic Washington dance between a narrow, “focused” fix and a systemic overhaul. The age-gating and data privacy bills are complex, but they work within the existing system. They’re about adding new rules to the current app store model. The App Store Freedom Act is about changing the model itself. It’s inherently messier and scarier to the tech giants.
But think about it. If you’re a parent, which solution seems more durable? A new layer of age-verification tech from companies that profit from engagement, or the ability to simply hand your kid a phone that only has an educational app store on it by default? The technical and logistical challenges of opening up iOS are real—security being the big one—but the trade-off is clear. We’re debating how to put better locks on a single gate, while some are asking why we can’t just build a whole new, safer yard.
