Today's Business Headlines: 05/27/25
, putting the second-most-populous state at the center of a debate over whether and how to regulate smartphone use by children and teenagers. The law, effective on Jan. 1, requires parental consent to download apps or make in-app purchases for users aged under 18.
Another Texas bill, passed in the Texas House of Representatives and awaiting a Senate vote, would restrict social media apps to users over 18.Texas became the second state to require parental consent to download apps or make in-app purchases for users aged under 18. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, above.Age limits and parental consent for social media apps are one of the few areas of wide US consensus, with a Pew Research poll in 2023 finding that 81% of Americans support requiring parental consent for children to create social media accounts and 71% support age verification before using social media.Popular fast-food chain wants to shut down 76 restaurants that refuse to stay open past 2 p.m. How US stocks have flopped in 2025 — falling out of the Top 40 worldwide — because of Trump’s tariffsHow to implement age restrictions has caused a conflict between Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, and Apple and Google, which own the two dominant US app stores.“Parents want a one-stop shop to verify their child’s age and grant permission for them to download apps in a privacy-preserving way. The app store is the best place for it, and more than one-third of US states have introduced bills recognizing the central role app stores play,” the companies said.Kathleen Farley, vice president of litigation for the Chamber of Progress, a group backed by Apple and Alphabet, said the Texas law is likely to face legal challenges on First Amendment grounds. “A big path for challenge is that it burdens adult speech in attempting to regulate children’s speech,” Farley told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. “I would say there are arguments that this is a content-based regulation singling out digital communication.” Child online safety groups that backed the Texas bill have also long argued for app store age verification, saying it is the only way to give parents effective control over children’s use of technology. “The problem is that self-regulation in the digital marketplace has failed, where app stores have just prioritized the profit over safety and rights of children and families,” Casey Stefanski, executive director for the Digital Childhood Alliance, told Reuters. Apple and Google opposed the Texas bill, saying it imposes blanket requirements to share age data with all apps, even when those apps are uncontroversial.Apple and Google opposed the Texas bill, saying it imposes blanket requirements to share age data with all apps, even when those apps are uncontroversial.“If enacted, app marketplaces will be required to collect and keep sensitive personal identifying information for every Texan who wants to download an app, even if it’s an app that simply provides weather updates or sports scores,” Apple said in a statement. Google and Apple each have their own proposals that involve sharing age range data only with apps that require it, rather than all apps. “We see a role for legislation here,” said Kareem Ghanem, senior director of government affairs and public policy at Google, told Reuters. “It’s just got to be done in the right way, and it’s got to hold the feet of Mark Zuckerberg and the social media companies to the fire, because it’s the harms to kids and teens on those sites that’s really inspired people to take a closer look here and see how we can all do better.”Popular fast-food chain wants to shut down 76 restaurants that refuse to stay open past 2 p.m. How US stocks have flopped in 2025 — falling out of the Top 40 worldwide — because of Trump’s tariffsTrump admin pauses all student visas | Reporter Replay Texas became the second state to require parental consent to download apps or make in-app purchases for users aged under 18. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, above.Apple and Google opposed the Texas bill, saying it imposes blanket requirements to share age data with all apps, even when those apps are uncontroversial. Highly infectious new COVID strain from China that led to massive spike in hospitalizations has spread to the US — including NYC
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