A report by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration presents several recommendations to improve competition in the mobile application market and one of those is providing consumers more control over their devices. This could be achieved, NTIA reasons, by allowing them to use alternative mobile app stores, hide or delete pre-installed apps and select their own apps as defaults.
The NTIA report recommends that operators of app stores remove restrictions on alternative approaches for users to download and install applications, not be able to “self-preference” their apps in an anti-competitive manner and address limits on in-app purchasing options.
NTIA evaluated over 150 comments from various stakeholders and found that developers and other innovators have limited avenues to reach users since consumers could not gain access to applications outside of the mobile app stores operated by Google and Apple.
According to the report, the US government should introduce additional antitrust enforcement measures and new legislation to drive competition in the mobile app ecosystem.
NTIA initiated the report in response to President Joe Biden’s executive order on competition in 2021.