Connect with us

Published

on

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Wednesday signed a bill that requires Apple and Google’s mobile app stores to verify user ages and require parental permission for those under 18 to use certain apps, the governor’s spokesperson told CNBC.

The law is the first of its kind in the nation and represents a significant shift in how user ages are verified online, and says it’s the responsibility of mobile app stores to verify ages — putting the onus on Apple and Google, instead of individual apps like Instagram, Snapchat and X, to do age checks.

The App Store Accountability Act, or S.B. 142, could also kick off a wave of other states, including South Carolina and California, passing similar legislation

The law is designed to protect children, who may not understand apps’ terms of services and, therefore, can’t agree to them, said Todd Weiler, a Republican state senator and the bill’s sponsor.

“For the past decade or longer, Instagram has rated itself as friendly for 12 year olds,” Weiler said at a state senate committee hearing in January. “It’s not.”

Apple and Google will need to request age verification checks when someone makes a new account in the state. That will most likely have to be done using credit cards, according to Weiler. If someone under 18 opens an app store account, Apple or Google will have to link it to a parent’s account or request additional documentation. Parents will have to consent to in-app purchases.

Neither company immediately returned a request for comment on Wednesday.

Meta, X and Snap said on Wednesday they applauded Cox and Utah for passing the bill, and encouraged other states to consider similar approaches.

“Parents want a one-stop-shop to oversee and approve the many apps their teens want to download, and Utah has led the way in centralizing it within a device’s app store,” the companies said in a joint statement. “This approach spares users from repeatedly submitting personal information to countless individual apps and online services.”

The Utah law is slated to take effect on May 7, but it is expected to be challenged in a legal fight over its validity. The state passed a similar age-verification law related to pornography in 2023, and arguments whether that law violates free speech were heard by the Supreme Court in January.

Utah’s adoption of the law is also the latest shot in a long-running skirmish between Facebook-parent Meta and Apple.

Meta, which supported the bill, argues that app stores are the best place to do age verification on minors, instead of on individual apps. Meta has recently shifted its policy strategy to seek strategic advantages for itself and shift antitrust scrutiny onto Apple, CNBC reported last month

Apple says it makes the most sense for apps themselves to do age verification, and that due to privacy reasons, it doesn’t want to collect the data needed for age verification.

The “right place to address the dangers of age-restricted content online is the limited set of websites and apps that host that kind of content,” according to a paper Apple posted on its website last month.

Utah’s bill raises privacy and safety risks, Google said in a blog post on March 12.

“There are a variety of fast-moving legislative proposals being pushed by Meta and other companies in an effort to offload their own responsibilities to keep kids safe to app stores,” Google Director of Public Policy Kareem Ghanem wrote. “These proposals introduce new risks to the privacy of minors, without actually addressing the harms that are inspiring lawmakers to act.”

The push for age verification comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, X CEO Lina Yaccarino, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and other social media CEOs appeared before Congress in January 2024 for a hearing focused on online child safety. 

There, lawmakers criticized the companies, saying they failed to stem online child sexual exploitation on social media apps and needed to do more. Zuckerberg appeared rattled during the hearing after senators told him he had “blood on your hands.” However, the legislation that came out of the meeting, the Kids Online Safety Act, failed to advance in Congress late last year.

Meta has also been hit with a number of lawsuits filed by states relating to the well-being of children on Facebook and Instagram.

— CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report.

WATCH: Apple delays AI improvements to Siri until 2026: Here’s what to know

Continue Reading

Technology

Trump to host Jensen Huang at White House as Nvidia tops $4 trillion market cap

Published

on

By

Trump to host Jensen Huang at White House as Nvidia tops  trillion market cap

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers remarks next to U.S. President Donald Trump at an ‘Investing in America’ event in Washington, D.C., on April 30, 2025.

Leah Millis | Reuters

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, CNBC’s Megan Cassella reported.

The meeting comes as Nvidia rose slightly on Thursday, becoming the first company to close a trading day with a market cap over $4 trillion, beating Apple and Microsoft to the symbolic milestone. Nvidia touched the mark briefly on Wednesday during trading.

Trump praised Nvidia stock in a social media post Thursday morning.

“NVIDIA IS UP 47% SINCE TRUMP TARIFFS. USA is taking in Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “COUNTRY IS NOW ‘BACK.'”

An Nvidia representative declined to comment, and it was unclear what the meeting is about, but Nvidia has been grappling with export controls on its artificial intelligence chips implemented by the Trump administration in April for national security reasons.

At the time, the U.S. government told Nvidia that its previously-approved H20 processor — intended exclusively for the Chinese market — would require an export license. Huang previously told investors that requirement effectively cut off Nvidia’s sales to China with “no grace period.” The AI chipmaker said that it would miss $8 billion in planned orders for the chip in the company’s July quarter.

“The $50 billion China market is effectively closed to U.S. industry,” Huang told investors on an earnings call in May.

Nvidia also faces another potential restriction on AI chip exports after the Trump administration cancelled a planned rule by former President Joe Biden called the “AI diffusion rule.” The Trump administration promised newer, simpler restrictions later this year on which countries could receive Nvidia’s technology.

WATCH: Fundstrat’s Tom Lee: Nvidia being the most valuable company in the S&P makes a lot of sense

Fundstrat's Tom Lee: Nvidia being the most valuable company in the S&P makes a lot of sense

Continue Reading

Technology

Musk, X to face trial in Don Lemon lawsuit alleging breach of contract

Published

on

By

Musk, X to face trial in Don Lemon lawsuit alleging breach of contract

Elon Musk (L) & Don Lemon

Reuters (L) | Getty Images (R)

Ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon‘s lawsuit against tech billionaire Elon Musk and his social network X over the cancellation of their partnership can proceed to trial, a San Francisco judge ruled this week.

Musk’s team had tried to get the case moved to a Texas court and tried to convince the judge to strike the complaint altogether.

Attorneys for Musk and X didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In an order Tuesday, Judge Harold Kahn said Lemon and his attorneys plausibly alleged, among other claims, that X and Musk had committed “fraud by false promise” and that there was “an implied contract” between them.

Lemon filed the suit in August 2024 after X canceled a partnership with the broadcast journalist a few hours after he taped a tense interview with Musk, who owns X. The interview preceded a planned premiere of Lemon’s new show on Musk’s social network.

During the interview, Lemon pressed Musk on several contentious topics he had posted about or amplified on X. Musk had boosted the so-called “great replacement theory,” and other bigoted tropes and falsehoods, including posts that claimed there was a “Hispanic invasion” of immigrants to the U.S.

Read more CNBC tech news

Lemon also pressed Musk about content moderation on X, and a reported surge in antisemitic content on the platform that occurred after Musk acquired it as Twitter in a $44 billion leveraged buyout in late 2022.

Musk made sweeping changes after taking over the site, firing huge numbers of personnel and reversing account bans for users who had been booted from the platform after posting hate speech or inciting violence.

Musk, who characterized himself as a free speech “absolutist” also restored the account of President Donald Trump. The site had permanently banned Trump from the platform in January 2021 following the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

Lemon’s case against Musk and X Corp. is in San Francisco Superior Court. A date has not been set for the trial.

Musk and X have faced a litany of other lawsuits over non-payment to vendors and over failure to provide severance as promised to laid-off employees from Twitter.

Lemon was fired from CNN in 2023 following reports that he mistreated coworkers and made sexist remarks on-air, including about politician Nikki Haley. Lemon later apologized for the Haley comments.

Continue Reading

Technology

Bitcoin sets another record above $113,000 as investors jump into risk assets, liquidate shorts

Published

on

By

Bitcoin sets another record above 3,000 as investors jump into risk assets, liquidate shorts

Nurphoto | Getty Images

Bitcoin climbed to new all-time high on Thursday, building on its previous record reached just a day earlier, as investors jumped into risk assets and liquidated short positions.

The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by about 2% at $113,459.16. Earlier, it rose as high as $113,863.18.

On Thursday afternoon, bitcoin saw about $318 million in short liquidations across centralized exchanges in a 24 hour period, according to CoinGlass. When traders use leverage to short bitcoin and the cryptocurrency’s price rises, they buy bitcoin back from the market to close their positions, which pushes the price up and causes more positions to be liquidated.

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

hide content

Bitcoin this week

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

Continue Reading

Trending