Source: SCMP
The parent company of TikTok, one of the worlds most popular apps, is in trouble again. But this time it seems like its acquisition of Musical.ly is to blame.
ByteDance has been sued for collecting personally identifiable data of children without parental consent, which is against the US Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This is the second time this issue has become a problem for ByteDance, which paid a US$5.7 million fine to the US Federal Trade Commission in February for the same reason.
The new lawsuit accuses Musical.ly -- the app later acquired by ByteDance and merged into TikTok in 2017 -- of collecting geo-locations, names, phone numbers and other information of young users since 2014.
That data eventually ended up with TikTok and ByteDance. We reached out to ByteDance for comment but havent received a response.
ByteDance and TikTok have been facing increasing scrutiny in the US, where its facing another lawsuit for allegedly sending user data to servers in China. The company has also come under suspicion for censoring or shadow-banning content that doesnt please Chinese authorities. The Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, has also been accused of disseminating state propaganda about the countrys western Xinjiang region.
TikTok has repeatedly defended itself over concerns about data security and censorship. It denies being influenced by Beijing to censor content and says American user data is stored in the US and Singapore.
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