• by Wendy Davis , June 18, 2026

A broad array of outside organizations are urging the Supreme Court to immediately pause a Texas law requiring Google and Apple to verify users' ages and prevent minors under 18 from downloading apps or making in-app purchases, without parental consent.

"Texas has done something unprecedented. It has attempted to age-gate internet use," the free speech advocacy group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, tech organization NetChoice, libertarian think tank Cato Institute and others argue in a friend-of-the-court brief filed Thursday.

The groups are backing the tech organization Computer & Communications Industry Association and student group Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, which last week petitioned the court to block the Texas App Store Accountability Act on First Amendment grounds.

The petitions were filed with Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency requests from the 5th Circuit.

The Texas law was originally slated to take effect in January, but U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman in Austin blocked the statute, ruling it was likely unconstitutional.

He characterized the measure as "akin to a law that would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door and, for minors, require parental consent before the child or teen could enter and again when they try to purchase a book."

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed the injunction to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which late last month lifted the block.

Pitman argued that the law merely regulates "commercial" transactions between minors and app stores, elaborating that minors who download apps "are accepting terms of service, including agreements about how their data is used."

The 5th Circuit appeared to adopt that position.

"App store transactions are commercial in nature," two 5th Circuit judges (Reagan appointee Jerry Smith and Trump appointee Andrew Oldham) said in a written opinion explaining why they lifted the injunction.

A third judge (George W. Bush appointee Catharina Haynes) agreed with the decision to allow the law to take effect, but didn't join in the written opinion.

"App listings propose commercial transactions, regardless of whether any monetary payment is made," Smith and Oldham wrote.

Last week, the student group and Computer & Communications Industry Association petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse the 5th Circuit on an emergency basis and pause the law pending further proceedings.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and other supporters argue in their friend-of-the-court brief that the 5th Circuit's was "wrong as a matter of law" to hold that apps and app stores are commercial speech.

"Offering access to expressive, informative, and speech-facilitating apps does far more than 'propose a commercial transaction,'" the groups write. "The panel’s reasoning risks recasting much of the internet as 'commercial speech' stripped of the First Amendment’s full protections."

The organizations add that app stores "are modern distribution points for protected expression across media: films and video services, books and audiobooks, news, messaging, web browsing, educational tools, and games, among others."

The groups also argue that if Texas wanted to regulate app stores' terms of service, the state legislature could have passed a narrower law that just addressed terms of service.

"Instead, the Act burdens threshold access to apps on app stores in particular, threatening Texans’ access to the internet’s trove of valuable expression and expression-facilitating tools," the organizations write.

Texas is not the only state attempting to restrict minors' ability to use apps. Utah and Louisiana passed similar statutes last year, and federal lawmakers have introduced a nationwide version.

Texas is expected to file a response with the Supreme Court by June 22.