Google is pushing back against other major technology companies' efforts to put the responsibility of age verification on the app stores, arguing the onus is on both the stores and developers to boost children's safety.

In a blog post published Wednesday, Google pushed back against what it called "concerning legislation" in Utah, which became the first state in the country to pass a bill requiring app stores to verify users' ages. It also requires app stores to receive parental consent for minors to download applications.

"The bill requires app stores to share if a user is a kid or teenager with all app developers (effectively millions of individual companies) without parental consent or rules on how the information is used," Kareem Ghanem, Google's director of public policy, wrote.

"That raises real privacy and safety risks, like the potential for bad actors to sell the data or use it for other nefarious purposes,"........

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