Arizona Senate skips vote on bill HB2005, which would have forced Apple and Google to let apps in their app stores use alternative in-app payment systems
The bill went poof — The Arizona StateSenate was scheduled to vote an unprecedented and controversial bill on Wednesday …
The pause also fits a near-term pattern: North Dakota’s Senate had blocked a comparable app-store payment measure, leaving developers without the state mandates both bills sought to create.
First-order effects
Apple and Google avoid an Arizona requirement to open their app stores’ in-app payment flows to alternatives.
Developers seeking to use third-party payment systems in Arizona gain no statutory change from HB2005’s Senate consideration.
Second-order effects
The skipped vote reinforces that app-store payment mandates face procedural as well as policy hurdles in state legislatures, after North Dakota blocked a similar bill.
Apple and Google retain their existing payment-system leverage while proponents of alternative payments must pursue another legislative venue or a renewed Arizona effort.
Third-order effects
If repeated state efforts continue to stall, the fight over app-store payment rules is likely to concentrate in jurisdictions able to move binding platform mandates rather than in isolated state bills.
The episode places payment choice at the center of a broader platform-governance conflict, with legislative access becoming as consequential as app-store policy itself.
The trend: App-store payment governance is becoming a cross-jurisdiction policy contest in which platform lobbying and legislative procedure shape whether developers can obtain mandated alternatives.
The big show turned out to be a no show. The bill was killed in mid-air while on the agenda with a backroom deal. Apple has hired the governor's former chief of staff, and word is that he brokered a deal to prevent this from even being heard. #America4Sale https://twitter.com/...
Ahead of Key Vote, @recobbforazrep Urges Senate Support for #HB2005 to Protect Arizona Consumers & Businesses from Big Tech Monopolies, Devastating Fees. https://www.azleg.gov/... #azleg https://twitter.com/...
So the App Store regulation law Arizona HB2005, which was on the agenda today in the state senate, just mysteriously vanished, and nobody is publicly saying why. It was passed over and never heard on the floor or voted on. And its fate is now uncertain. https://www.theverge.com/.…
Doesn't mean it's guaranteed that it's over in Arizona, but hot diggity damn. Seeing how the corru... I mean.. lobbying works this close and this brazenly is something else. But Apple can't buy all the legislators in all the states. Refuse to believe that.
So apparently some backroom deal has been struck that killed the opportunity for this bill to be heard by the committee today. I guess whatever money Apple spent to hire the governor's former chief of staff is paying off! Sheesh.
I'll praise Apple when they do good things and condemn them when they do bad things. This is a bad thing. This feels gross and undemocratic and morally wrong. Regardless of what bill this was its reprehensible to subvert the will of the people & their representatives https://twit…
Pretty weird that this bill ghosted! Then again, an App Store bill getting mysteriously rejected without sufficient explanation is ...fitting. https://twitter.com/...
An app store case against Google led by state AGs... A reminder that today the Arizona state Senate has a hearing on the app store anti-monopoly bill. https://twitter.com/...