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Who controls what you can do on your mobile phone? What happens when your device can only run what the government decides is OK? We are dangerously close to this kind of totalitarian control, thanks to a combination of government overreach and technocratic infrastructure choices.

Most Americans have a smartphone, and the average American spends . While these devices are critical to most people鈥檚 daily lives, what they can actually do is shaped by what apps are readily available. A slim majority of American smartphone users use an iPhone, which means they can only install apps available from 础辫辫濒别鈥檚 AppStore. Nearly all the rest of US smartphone users use some variant of Android, and by default they get their apps from Google鈥檚 Play Store.

Collectively, these two app stores shape the universe of what is available to most people as they use the Internet and make their way through their daily lives. When those app stores block or limit apps based on government requests, they are shaping what people can do, say, communicate, and experience.

Recently, Apple ICEBlock from the AppStore, making it unavailable in one fell swoop. This app was designed to let people anonymously report public sightings of ICE agents. In the United States people absolutely have a First Amendment right to inform others about what they have seen government officials doing and where 鈥� very much including immigration agents whose tactics have been and . Apple pulled the ICEBlock app at . The following day, Google from the Google Play Store.

The DOJ鈥檚 pressuring of Apple is an unacceptable, censorious overreach. And Google鈥檚 subsequent removal of Red Dot looks like troubling premature capitulation. While some experts and activists have expressed , those concerns are no reason for the government to meddle in software distribution. The administration鈥檚 ostensible are trying to shape how Americans can communicate with each other about matters of pressing political concern.

Infrastructure choices
But the government鈥檚 overreach isn鈥檛 the whole story here. The current structure of the mobile phone ecosystem enables this kind of abuse and control.

础辫辫濒别鈥檚 iOS (the operating system for any iPhone) is designed to only be able to run apps from the AppStore. If Apple hasn鈥檛 signed off on it, the app won鈥檛 run. This centralized control is ripe for abuse:

• Apple has control over what apps are available to iPhone users in China, including .
• The corporation has used its authority over the AppStore critiqued its.
• 础辫辫濒别鈥檚 say that 鈥溾�楨nemies鈥� within the context of a game cannot solely target a specific 鈥� government, corporation, or any other real entity.鈥� That represents a potential for sweeping censorship of anyone who wants to use the art of games to criticize companies or otherwise advance political messages.
• It the popular game Fortnite from the App Store as it was battling the gamemaker to get a bigger cut of money from user transactions.
• In 2012 Apple rejected an app that compiled reports of highly controversial overseas drone strikes by the U.S. government during the 鈥淲ar on Terror.鈥�

Unlike Apple, Google鈥檚 Android operating system has traditionally allowed relatively easy access to 鈥渟ideloading鈥�, which just means installing apps through means other than Google鈥檚 Play Store. Although most installations default to getting apps from the Play Store, the availability of sideloading means that even if Google censors apps in the Play Store, people can still install them. Even apps critical of Google can make it onto an Android device. It鈥檚 also possible to run a variant of Android without the Play Store at all, such as .

Unfortunately that is all set to change with a that it will block apps from 鈥渃ertified Android鈥� devices (which is nearly all Android phones) unless they come from what Google calls a 鈥渧erified developer.鈥� This means that the common Android user trying to install an app will have to get Google鈥檚 blessing: does this app come from someone that Google has 鈥渧erified鈥�? How Google will decide who is allowed to be verified and who is not is still unclear. Can a developer become 鈥渦nverified鈥�?

This upcoming change is framed by Google as , but merely knowing the identity of the developer of an app doesn鈥檛 provide any security. So the only way that the 鈥渧erified developer鈥� requirement can offer security is if Google withholds 鈥渧erified developer鈥� status from people it deems bad actors. But Google鈥檚 ability to withhold that status can be abused in the same way that 础辫辫濒别鈥檚 AppStore lock-in is being abused. A government will simply make a demand: 鈥渢reat this developer as a bad actor鈥� and effectively cut off any app by targeting its developer.

When a lever of control is available, the would-be censors will try to use it. It has never been true that someone who buys a Lenovo or Dell laptop, for example, has to let Lenovo or Dell tell them what programs they can and cannot install on their computer. Yet that will soon be the situation with regards to nearly all cell phones used in the United States.

Note that American iPhones are limited to only apps from the AppStore, but European Union (EU) iPhones don鈥檛 have that restriction. The EU鈥檚 Digital Markets Act (DMA) required Apple to permit (which Apple calls 鈥渨eb distribution鈥�). As a result, marketplaces like are starting to become available 鈥� but Apple only lets EU customers use them. The European regime is not perfect, however; while sideloaded apps and alternative app stores aren鈥檛 subject to the app store鈥檚 constraints, they are still obliged to follow 础辫辫濒别鈥檚 , which requires Apple to review all iOS apps 鈥� even from these alternate sources 鈥� on the basis of several vaguely worded rationales. For example, if the DoJ were to claim that ICEBlock 鈥減romoted physical harm鈥� (even though it clearly does not), Apple could use this as an excuse to justify revoking their notarization of the app, which would prevent it from being installed even from these alternate channels.

App store security and surveillance
Both Apple and Google make claims that their app distribution mechanisms improve security for their users. And clearly, these tech giants do block some abusive apps by exercising the control they have.

But both of them also regularly allow apps that contain common malicious patterns, including many apps built with that . If either tech giant were serious about user security, they could ban these practices, but they do not. Google鈥檚 security claims are also undermined by the fact that the cellphone hacking company Cellebrite that Google鈥檚 Pixel phones can be hacked, while those running GrapheneOS, created by a small non-profit, cannot. (Asked by a reporter why that was so, Google .)

Making matters worse, organizations like Google are unclear about their policies, and some of their policy statements can put developers and users at risk. Discussing blocking Red Dot, for example, that 鈥渁pps that have user generated content must also conduct content moderation.鈥� This implies that Google could become unwilling to distribute fully end-to-end encrypted apps, like or , since those app vendors by design are incapable of reviewing user-generated content. End-to-end encrypted apps are for secure communications, and no app store that signals a willingness to remove them can claim to put security first.

In addition, even if you鈥檝e carefully curated the apps you have installed from these dominant app stores to avoid spyware and use strongly secure apps, the stores themselves monitor the devices, keeping dossiers of what apps are installed on each device, and . Being a user of these app stores means being under heavy, regular surveillance.

Other options exist
These centralized, surveilled, censorship-enabling app stores are not the only way to distribute software. Consider alternative app stores for Android, like , which prioritizes in its apps, and , which enables installation of free and open source apps. In addition to offering quality tools and auditing, F-Droid鈥檚 policies the apps distributed on the platform to trim out overwhelming amounts of corporate spyware that infest both Google and 础辫辫濒别鈥檚 app stores. Neither F-Droid nor Accrescent do any surveillance of their users at all.

The F-Droid developers the impact that Google鈥檚 upcoming developer registration requirements are likely to have on the broader ecosystem of privacy-preserving Android apps. The outcome doesn鈥檛 look good: the ability to install free and open source software on a common device might be going away. Those few people left using unusual devices (鈥渦ncertified鈥� Android deployments like , or even more obscure non-Android operating systems like ) will still have the freedom to install tools that they want, but the overwhelming majority of people will be stuck with what can quickly devolve into a government-controlled cop-in-your-pocket.

How we can push back
In an increasingly centralized world, it will take very little for an abusive government to cause an effective organizing tool to disappear, to block an app that belongs to a critical dissenting media outlet, or to force invasive malware into a software update used by everyone. We need a shared infrastructure that doesn鈥檛 permit this kind of centralized control. We can disrupt oligopolistic control over software through user choice (e.g., preferring and installing free software), building good protocol frameworks (e.g., demanding tools that use open standards for interoperability), and through regulatory intervention (e.g., breaking up monopolistic actors, or mandating that an OS must allow sideloading, as the EU did with the DMA).

The device you carry with you that is privy to much of your life should be under your control, not under the control of an abusive government or corporations that do its bidding.