TikTok to pay $400m to US in one of largest child privacy settlements
TikTok and parent company ByteDance have agreed to pay the US government $400 million to settle a lawsuit alleging violations of children's privacy law, one of the largest such settlements on record.
TikTok has agreed to pay the US government $400 million to resolve a lawsuit accusing the platform of violating children's privacy protections, in one of the largest settlements of its kind. The case originated from a 2024 lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice under then-President Joe Biden, which alleged that TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, collected extensive data on millions of users under age 13.
Such data collection violates the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a federal law in place since 2000. The same law is currently the basis for lawsuits filed by dozens of US states against Meta. Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said children and parents are now better protected than when the case began.
Other companies previously penalized under COPPA include Google's YouTube, which paid $170 million in 2019, and Epic Games, which paid $275 million in 2022. Meta now faces potential penalties that could reach hundreds of billions of dollars in a case brought by attorneys general from 29 states, with a jury trial in that matter beginning this week.
Although the TikTok lawsuit predates last year's separation of TikTok's US operations from its Chinese parent, the settlement applies only to TikTok's operations tied to China. Privately held ByteDance was most recently valued by investors at $550 billion.
Under the settlement terms, TikTok and ByteDance will pay the Department of Justice $300 million immediately, with an additional $100 million due once the government vacates a 2019 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission. As part of the agreement, Musical.ly, ByteDance's predecessor, was required to pay a $5.7 million fine for COPPA violations and to obtain parental consent for users under 13.
When the lawsuit was filed, US attorneys said more than 170 million teenagers were using TikTok and that the app was directed at children, yet it failed to properly verify users' ages or secure parental consent for minors. In 2024, Biden pushed for TikTok to be banned or divested, a position later supported by President Donald Trump; the divestment took place last year. TikTok's US operations are now 81% owned by a consortium of investors, with ByteDance retaining a 19% stake.
