$400M COPPA Settlement Hits TikTok Amid Ongoing Regulatory Pressure

TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have agreed to pay $400 million to settle a federal lawsuit alleging the platform violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA. The deal resolves the case without TikTok admitting wrongdoing.

The Department of Justice filed the complaint on August 2, 2024, in California's US District Court for the Central District. The core allegation was that TikTok knowingly allowed children under 13 to create accounts without obtaining parental consent, then collected their personal information anyway.

Federal law requires platforms to get verifiable parental consent before gathering data from kids under 13. The DOJ argued TikTok not only failed to do this but also ignored parental requests to delete their children's data.