TikTok logos are seen on smartphones for a displayed ByteDance logo taken in this illustration, November 27, 2019.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
President Donald Trump on Friday issued an executive order that will force China’s ByteDance to sell or spin its American TikTok business within 90 days.
“There is credible evidence that leads me to believe that ByteDance … can take action that threatens to restrict the national security of the United States,” Trump said in his order.
The order was seen as good news for TikTok – a wildly popular short form app for video sharing – and its future in the US, at least relative to an earlier executive order from Trump last week. The previous order could have forced US-based app stores to stop distributing the TikTok app if their parent ByteDance did not reach reach to disinvest it in 45 days.
The new order buys time for ByteDance to sort out a potential deal for TikTok.
Under the latest order, ByteDance is expected to destroy all copies of TikTok data to US users, and will notify the United States Foreign Investment Committee (CFIUS) if it has destroyed all that data.
According to a Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday, TikTok apparently collects some of its users’ MAC addresses, which are unique, fixed identifiers assigned to mobile phones and other Internet-connected devices. MAC addresses can be used to track the physical location of a person using a connected device, even if they have opted out of all other ad-related trackers in their phone’s settings.
The report prompted U.S. senators to ask the Federal Trade Commission to investigate TikTok’s data collection practices.
Microsoft has confirmed that it has held talks with ByteDance to buy its company in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The company is seen as the leading bidder, and the estimated value of such a deal falls between $ 10 billion and $ 30 billion.
ByteDance did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
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