US App Compliance Requirements: An Indie Developer's Map

There is no single "US privacy law." Instead, a launching indie developer or store owner faces a patchwork: a growing set of state privacy statutes, a federal children's-privacy law, state automatic-renewal rules, and newer AI-specific obligations like California's companion-chatbot law. None of it is centralized, and the rules that apply to you depend on where your users live and what your app does—not where you are based.

This page maps the digital-compliance areas that most often matter for a small app or web product reaching US users, and points to the LaunchTrust detectors and checklists that help surface the related signals. It is deliberately not exhaustive: US obligations shift state by state and year by year. Treat this as an orientation map, not a legal opinion.

State privacy laws (CCPA/CPRA and the wave that followed)

California's Consumer Privacy Act, expanded by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), is the most influential US privacy regime. It gives California residents rights to know what data is collected, to delete it, to correct it, and to opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information. A dozen-plus other states—including Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and Texas—have since passed their own consumer-privacy laws, each with its own thresholds and wording but a broadly similar shape.

For an indie developer the practical baseline is the same almost everywhere: a clear, accessible privacy policy that explains what you collect, why, who you share it with, and how a user can exercise their rights. Even where you fall under a statute's size or revenue thresholds and aren't strictly in scope, the App Store and Google Play expect a published policy regardless.

• A reachable, specific privacy policy is the foundation. See the privacy policy detector.
• A working path for users to request deletion of their data backs up the "right to delete" these laws share. See the account and data deletion detector.

Whether any specific statute applies to you is a scope question—turning on your revenue, user counts, and the kinds of data you handle—so confirm it against the relevant state law or with counsel.

Global Privacy Control (GPC)

Under California's framework, regulators have treated a browser's Global Privacy Control signal as a valid opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information. Honoring GPC has two halves: publishing a small /.well-known/gpc.json file that declares your site participates, and actually changing behavior when a browser sends the Sec-GPC: 1 header. The published file is the part an external check can see.

• A scanner can confirm the published declaration file, not the runtime behavior behind it. See the Global Privacy Control detector.

This is one of the lowest-effort, easiest-to-miss US privacy signals for any site with California traffic.

Children's privacy (COPPA)

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) governs the online collection of personal information from children under 13. If your app is directed to children, or you have actual knowledge that you collect data from under-13 users, COPPA generally requires verifiable parental consent and tighter data practices. The app stores reinforce this: both Apple and Google have dedicated kids/family program rules, and Google Play's Families policy is strict about ads and data in child-directed apps.

The first externally visible signal here is whether your app even attempts to establish a user's age before collecting data.

• An age signal at entry is the scannable scaffolding for child-directed and mixed-audience apps. See the age-gate assurance detector.

Note that age handling and parental consent are mostly enforced by your backend and onboarding logic, which a passive scan cannot evaluate.

Automatic-renewal and subscription laws

Several states—California's Automatic Renewal Law is the best known—regulate how subscriptions and auto-renewing plans are sold. The recurring expectations are clear, conspicuous disclosure of renewal terms before purchase (price, billing cadence, and how to cancel), affirmative consent to the recurring charge, and an easy cancellation path. Apple and Google add their own auto-renewable subscription disclosure requirements on top, so this is an area where store policy and US state law point the same direction.

• Whether your pre-purchase screen surfaces the renewal terms is a checkable signal. See the subscription auto-renewal disclosure detector.

If you sell a recurring plan, this is one of the most common reasons for both app-review pushback and consumer complaints.

AI-specific rules (California SB 243 and the emerging landscape)

US AI regulation is early and fragmented, but one concrete example matters for conversational apps: California's SB 243, aimed at companion chatbots. It centers on disclosing that a user is talking to AI, heightened care for minors, and protocols for self-harm or crisis content. More states and federal proposals are in motion, so AI obligations are a moving target rather than a settled rulebook.

• For a companion or chatbot app, the disclosure scaffolding maps to a focused checklist. See the California SB 243 companion AI checklist.

If your product keeps users in ongoing, relationship-like conversation, assume this area applies and confirm the specifics against the statute.

What LaunchTrust checks—and what it can't

LaunchTrust passively fetches your public surfaces and reports detected / not detected / unable to determine for signals that leave an external trace: a reachable privacy policy, a published GPC file, an age gate, a renewal-terms disclosure, an account-deletion path, an AI interaction notice. It does not grade your app, certify any US law, or judge whether your data practices are correct.

The hard parts of US compliance—actually honoring deletion and opt-out requests, obtaining verifiable parental consent, routing crisis conversations, billing only after consent—live in your backend and can't be seen from outside. A clean scan confirms the visible scaffolding is present, not that the logic behind it satisfies the law.

How to address the common gaps

1. Publish a specific privacy policy that names what you collect, why, who you share with, and how users exercise their rights, then link it everywhere the stores expect.
2. Add a /.well-known/gpc.json file declaring participation and wire your backend to act on the Sec-GPC header for California traffic.
3. Decide your audience honestly—if children may use the app, add an age signal and the parental-consent flow COPPA expects.
4. Disclose renewal terms before purchase for any subscription, with price, cadence, and a clear cancellation path.
5. Add an in-product AI disclosure if you run a companion or chatbot experience, and review the SB 243 checklist.
6. Re-scan your public URL to confirm the externally visible signals flipped to detected.

Check this in 30 seconds

Run your app's URL through LaunchTrust's free scanner. It fetches your live page and reports whether US-relevant signals—privacy policy, GPC file, age gate, renewal disclosure, account-deletion path, AI notice—are detected, not detected, or unable to determine, so you can close the visible gaps before you submit.

FAQ

Does a clean LaunchTrust scan mean my app meets US law? No. The scan surfaces a handful of externally visible signals; it is not legal advice or certification and does not prove your app satisfies CCPA/CPRA, COPPA, auto-renewal laws, or SB 243. The behavior that actually determines your legal standing lives in your backend, which a passive scan can't see.

I'm based outside the US—do these rules still apply? Often, yes. US privacy and consumer laws generally turn on where your users are, not where you are. If you reach California or other state residents, those states' rules can apply regardless of your location. Confirm scope against the specific statute.

Is there one US privacy law I can just follow? No—that's the core challenge. The US has no single federal consumer-privacy law; it's a patchwork of state statutes plus federal rules like COPPA. Many developers aim at the strictest common denominator (often California) as a practical baseline, but that's a strategy, not a guarantee.

Which area trips up indie apps most often at submission? In practice, missing or vague privacy policies and unclear subscription renewal disclosures are frequent causes of app-review friction, and both leave externally visible signals you can check before you submit.

Compliance aid, not legal advice. LaunchTrust reports signals, not a verdict or certification.