David Shepardson and Rami Ayyub report: U.S. lawmakers on Thursday battered TikTok’s CEO about potential Chinese influence over the platform and said its short videos were damaging children’s mental health, reflecting bipartisan concerns about the app’s power over Americans. CEO Shou Zi Chew’s testimony before Congress did little to assuage U.S. worries over TikTok’s China-based parent company…
Category: Business
Meta Judge Grudgingly OKs $37.5M Tracking Deal For Now
A California federal judge on Thursday said he’d initially OK Meta’s $37.5 million deal to resolve claims it tracked 70 million users’ locations but pressed for a cy pres-only distribution, saying “no one” will submit a claim for “50 cents” and his approval is “the dictionary definition of ‘preliminary.’” Read more at Law360 (paywalled).
Tech Lobbyists Don’t Want States to Let You Sue Over Privacy Violations
Anna Edgerton reports: As soon as Kentucky’s legislative session opened this year, state Senator Whitney Westerfield re-introduced a data privacy bill to give consumers more control over personal information online. He knew what would come next. Last year, when he introduced similar legislation, industry lobbyists swooped in with an alternative bill based on a business-friendly…
The Justice Department is investigating TikTok over journalist spying incident
Taylor Hatmaker reports: The Biden administration has recently ramped up pressure on TikTok over national security concerns stemming from its ties to China, and apparently the Justice Department and the FBI are also applying pressure of their own. Forbes first reported that the agencies are actively investigating ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. The investigation was reportedly initiated after some…