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TikTok: Oracle and Walmart still come into play
Photo: Florence Lo / REUTERS
In the struggle for the TikTok video app, the US government has been ordered by a court to give detailed reasons or postpone the plans to stop the download.
According to the current status, TikTok will no longer be available in the Apple and Google app stores from Monday if there is no final agreement by then.
The US Department of Commerce had already postponed this deadline by a week after US President
Donald Trump
(74) announced his approval in principle for a currently planned deal for the global business of TikTok with the participation of the US companies Oracle and Walmart.
On Thursday he said that work was still going on on a final agreement, which he still had to agree to.
US government is under pressure to act
Before the decision of the judge in Washington, TikTok had applied for a quick injunction against the download stop.
The US government now has to respond by Friday.
TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.
Trump had described the app as a security risk because Chinese authorities could use the app to access data from US citizens.
Trump sees the TikTok activities as a risk to national security.
He fears that information from around 100 million monthly users in the US could be shared with the Chinese government.
In August, Trump banned US companies from doing business with TikTok and the WeChat messenger app from the Chinese internet company Tencent.
The action fueled tensions in the trade dispute with China.
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TikTok and ByteDance argued in vain that data from US users was being stored in the US and not going to China.
In this respect, the court order can at least be viewed as a partial success for TikTok.
Just a few days ago, a judge also thwarted Trump's blockade against the Chinese communication app WeChat.
TikTok is available in more than 150 countries.
The Chinese tech company ByteDance bought the app in 2017.
The company's revenue, which is primarily generated through advertising revenue from the apps, was estimated to be $ 18 billion in 2019.
TikTok recently reported that around 100 million people in Europe are also active on the app every month.
TikTok plans to set up a data center in Ireland by 2022 to store the data of European users.
rei / Reuters / dpa
