Texas AG Appeals Age-Verification Law Injunction as App Stores 'Breathe Easier'
The eleventh-hour freezing of a Texas app store age-verification law made for the “Happiest of Holidays,” Frankfurt Kurnit lawyer Emma Smizer blogged Tuesday after the U.S. District Court for Western Texas ruled that the Texas App Store Accountability Act likely violates the First Amendment (see 2512230062).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Privacy Daily provides accurate coverage of newsworthy developments in data protection legislation, regulation, litigation, and enforcement for privacy professionals responsible for ensuring effective organizational data privacy compliance.
However, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) appealed the preliminary injunction to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals the same day, according to a notice at the district court (case 1:25-cv-01660).
The Texas law was scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, but the court stopped it with about a week left in 2025. Oral argument between Texas and the law’s challenger, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, happened only about a week before, on Dec. 16.
“Now, with the Texas law enjoined, app stores and app developers can breathe easier going into this new year,” Smizer said. “Enforcement is effectively paused, and the remaining App Store Accountability Acts -- most notably those in Utah and Louisiana -- are likely to face similar constitutional challenges, and potentially similar injunctions, on the same grounds.”
“Not a bad way for app stores and developers to ring in the new year,” added the lawyer.