TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have agreed to pay the U.S. government $400 million to settle a lawsuit over violations of children's privacy. The BBC reports, according to UNN.
Details
The U.S. Department of Justice filed the lawsuit in 2024 under the administration of Joe Biden. The U.S. side alleged that TikTok and ByteDance collected "vast amounts of data" on millions of users under the age of 13, failed to properly determine their ages, and did not obtain parental consent.
The case concerns possible violations of the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which has been in effect since 2000. The settlement with TikTok will be one of the largest settlements of a children's privacy case in the United States.
Children and parents are better protected today than they were at the beginning of this case
Under the terms of the settlement, TikTok and ByteDance will immediately pay $300 million to the Department of Justice. The companies will pay another $100 million after the government rescinds the consent decree entered into with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in 2019.
U.S. claims against TikTok
In 2024, U.S. attorneys said that TikTok was used by more than 170 million people in the United States and that the platform was aimed, among others, at children. At the same time, according to the plaintiffs, the service did not properly verify users' ages or obtain parental consent.
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The Department of Justice noted that since the lawsuit was filed, TikTok has undergone significant changes regarding ownership, privacy, and control over younger users.
In 2019, TikTok's predecessor, Musical.ly, had already paid $5.7 million over COPPA violations. Other companies fined under the law include YouTube, which paid $170 million in 2019, and Epic Games, which paid $275 million in 2022.
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