In recent weeks, policymakers at both the state and federal level have expressed a growing amount of concern around children’s online safety and privacy. However, lawmakers are now considering proposals that would order major app stores to adopt rules making it more difficult to provide parents with the tools to control both their children’s time and spending on these apps. Further, these new rules would increase children’s access to risky and malicious apps.

Like a retail store that sells physical goods, app stores set the rules and terms for the products they carry. This can vary from app store to app store. App creators also select the markets they think will enable them to best reach their key markets.

The app stores found on cell phones and tablets exist and compete for consumers in a variety of technologies beyond those devices, including gaming consoles, computers, and streaming devices. Both innovators and consumers have benefited from the decreased costs in getting a product to market that app stores provide. In the prior era, individuals purchased software, movies, and video games at the store. Now they can be purchased with the push of a button.

The current system allows app stores to provide tools that set up easy and useful systems that parents feel they can trust when allowing children to use a device. For example, Apple’s app store provides information about ways apps use data and how to opt out of data tracking if parents want to protect a young person’s device. Apps to stores can also set security standards for the apps in their store and may choose to ban certain types of content like pornography.

The app stores and the devices that host them can also offer parental controls. Additionally, restrictions on in-app purchases going through the device’s payment processor allow app stores to offer features like “ask to buy” that can prevent a child from running up unexpected bills in a video game. Parents can also set time limits or other controls on devices with some devices, such as the Kindle Fire Kids Edition, which is designed specifically to offer parents a more comprehensive set of controls.

Regulation considered in Congress (such as the Open App Markets Act, which was considered last Congress and which is expected to return) and in some states could eliminate some of these features. These proposals would effectively mandate all devices provide open systems that allow any app access to a device and prevent current requirements app stores may have in place around issues including payment processing.

The result of such a mandate would mean parents could lose many of the tools that are currently available on devices to provide a safer environment for their children. A tool like “ask to buy” cannot function with a “pick your own payment processor” app, nor can an app store provide information on app tracking without its current vetting processes.

In many cases, these proposals would eliminate the ability of app stores to curate the apps they offer. This means an app that may appear safe at first glance could contain explicit information or engage in malicious data practices, and parents would be none the wiser.

App stores provide many of the easiest-to-use features for parents wanting to help their children safely navigate technology in a beneficial way. So if policymakers are serious about wanting to protect children online, proposals that dictate both the way app stores must function and the material they must carry call into question the sincerity of those intentions.