TikTok Agrees to $400 Million U.S. Settlement Over Children's Privacy Claims

Reuters

TikTok has been under pressure in the US since 2024.

TikTok has agreed to pay $400 million to settle a U.S. lawsuit alleging that the platform violated children’s privacy, in what is one of the largest settlements of its kind.

The agreement stems from a 2024 lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden, which accused TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, of collecting “vast amounts of data” on millions of users under the age of 13.

The alleged practices violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a federal law enacted in 2000. The same legislation is at the centre of a separate lawsuit brought by dozens of U.S. states against Meta.

“Children and parents are better protected today than they were when this case began,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said.

Other companies that have faced penalties from the US government for alleged COPPA violations include Google’s YouTube, which paid $170 million in 2019, and Epic Games, which paid $275 million in 2022.

Meta is also facing potentially substantial penalties over alleged COPPA violations brought by attorneys general from 29 U.S. states. A jury trial in that case began this week, with the owner of Instagram and Facebook accused of targeting children and profiting from their use of its platforms.

Although the TikTok lawsuit predates last year’s restructuring of the company’s U.S. operations, the settlement applies only to TikTok’s operations in China.

ByteDance, a privately held company, was most recently valued by investors at around $550 billion.

When the lawsuit was filed, U.S. attorneys said more than 170 million teenagers were using TikTok and alleged that the platform was “directed to children”. They accused the company of failing to effectively verify users’ ages or obtain parental consent for children under 13.

In 2024, former President Biden pushed for TikTok to be banned in the United States unless its U.S. operations were divested. President Donald Trump later supported the divestment, which took place last year.

TikTok’s U.S. operations are now 81% owned by a consortium of investors, while ByteDance retains a 19% stake.



PUKMEDIA