1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to take action against Google's new policy requiring all Android app developers to register centrally with Google before distributing applications outside of the Google Play Store. This policy, set to take effect worldwide in the coming months, represents a dangerous consolidation of corporate power over critical technological infrastructure. Google is extending its gatekeeping authority beyond its own marketplace into alternative distribution channels including websites, third-party app stores, enterprise distribution, and direct transfers. Developers must now undergo mandatory verification involving agreement to Google's terms, payment of fees, and uploading government-issued identification. Google gains the power to completely disable any app for any reason across the entire Android ecosystem, even for apps that never touch Google's services. This creates severe barriers for individual developers, small teams, open-source projects, privacy-focused developers, humanitarian organizations, activists working on internet freedom, developers in sanctioned regions, researchers, and internal enterprise applications. It establishes a comprehensive surveillance database of all Android developers regardless of whether they use Google's services, raising serious privacy concerns about data storage, government access requests, and tracking of politically sensitive applications. Android already includes sufficient security mechanisms after seventeen years of existence, including operating system-level security features, application sandboxing, permission systems, user warnings for sideloaded applications, and Google Play Protect. No evidence has been presented that these safeguards are insufficient. If Google's concern were genuinely about security rather than control, it would invest in improving existing mechanisms rather than creating new bottlenecks. This policy allows Google to collect competitive intelligence on all Android development activity, providing significant competitive advantages and raising antitrust questions. Regulatory authorities worldwide, including the European Commission and U.S. Department of Justice, have increasingly scrutinized dominant platforms' ability to restrict competition. I urge you to investigate this policy and take legislative or regulatory action to prevent Google from implementing this mandatory registration requirement. Android serves hundreds of governments, millions of businesses, and billions of citizens worldwide. Consolidating approval power into the hands of a single unaccountable corporation threatens innovation, competition, digital sovereignty, and free speech principles.