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The Utah App Store Law requires app store providers to verify a user’s age category and obtain parental consent for minors to download apps and make in-app purchases. It also requires developers to verify age category and consent through the app stores.
Schedule to go into effect May 6, 2026, the act was challenged in an action filed February 5 by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) against the Utah Attorney General, who was authorized to enforce the law under Utah’s deceptive trade practice laws.
While the CCIA’s case was pending, Utah amended the law (Utah App Store Accountability Amendments – H.B. 498). Some of the highlights of the amendment are below:
The Utah Attorney General’s ability to enforce the law under the Utah deceptive trade practice laws was removed. Now, the only enforcement mechanism is through a private right of action.
The effective date for the key provisions of the act has been pushed until May 6, 2027.
The requirements to specifically include pre-Installed applications has been expanded.
Previously only required to verify a user’s age category for new accounts, app Stores have until May 6, 2008, to request the age category information for users of existing accounts. (This is similar to the recently enacted Alabama App Store Law.)
Based on these changes, the Attorney General agreed they could not and would not enforce the Utah App Store Law. As a result, the CCIA no longer had standing to bring a challenge of the act against the Attorney General and voluntarily dismissed the case on April 21, 2026.
The amendment and the dismissal of the case puts app stores and developers back in the waiting game — waiting to see if the other app store Laws in Louisiana, Alabama or California, which are set to go into effect by January 1, 2027, are challenged. If they are not, they will have to wait for a new challenge to the Utah App Store Act — which is now harder to bring, since there is only a private right of action under the act and no obvious party to sue.
