TikTok to pay $400m to US in one of largest child privacy settlements

TikTok has reached a $400 million settlement with the US government to avoid allegations of violating children's privacy, marking one of the largest such settlements in history. This agreement is the result of a 2024 lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden, claiming that TikTok and its parent company ByteDance collected excessive data from millions of users under 13, which was in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) enacted in 2000.

Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate stated that children and parents are now better protected than when the case began. This case follows similar settlements from other companies, including Google's YouTube ($170m in 2019) and Epic Games ($275m in 2022), as well as Facebook's Meta, which could face penalties exceeding hundreds of billions of dollars for similar violations.

While the lawsuit against TikTok predates the recent split of TikTok's US business operations from its original base in China, the settlement only covers TikTok's operations in China. ByteDance, the privately held company that owns TikTok, was recently valued at $550 billion. Under the terms of the deal, TikTok and ByteDance will pay $300 million immediately and another $100 million when the government lifts a 2019 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission.