WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Tick Tock on Wednesday asked a U.S. judge to block Trump administration orders requiring Apple Inc. AAPL.O And Google of Alphabet Inc. GOOGL.O To remove the short video-sharing app for new downloads from Sunday.
A federal judge in San Francisco on Saturday barred the implementation of similar Commerce Department orders on Tencent Holdings from Sunday. 0700.HK WeChat app.
U.S. officials have expressed serious concern that the personal data of 100 million Americans who use the app could be leaked to the Communist Party of China government.
On Saturday, the Commerce Department announced a one-week delay in the Tic Tac Toe order, citing “recent positive developments” in discussions on the pace of its U.S. operations.
Tick Tock said the restrictions were not “triggered by a real national security issue, but by political considerations for the upcoming general election.”
If TickTalk does not block this order, “hundreds of millions of Americans who have not yet downloaded TikTalk will be expelled from this large and diverse online community – six weeks before the national election.”
Bytdance, the Chinese owner of TicTac, said on Monday that it would own 80% of TicTac Global, a newly created US company that would largely own app operations worldwide. ByteDance says TicTac Global will become its subsidiary.
Oracle Corp. ORCL.N And Walmart Inc. WMT.N TickTalk Global agreed to acquire a 12.5% and 7.5% stake, respectively. Oracle said on Monday that its ownership of TickTalk’s BitDance would be distributed to BitDance investors, with the Beijing – based company having no stake in TikTalk Global.
Byte Dance, Walmart and Oracle said on Saturday that they had reached an agreement that would allow Tic Tac Toe to continue in the United States after President Donald Trump said he had blessed the deal.
Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 14 giving Bydance 90 days to relinquish ownership of TicTac.
David Shepardson in Washington and Jonathan Stampel Reporting in New York; Editing by Sandra Maller and Matthew Louise
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