At a number of factors, Chew prevented direct questions on whether or not TikTok sells the info it collects.
“I consider we don’t promote knowledge to any knowledge brokers,” Chew stated in response to a query from Rep. Frank Pallone. “I didn’t ask you about knowledge brokers,” Pallone stated. “Do you promote it to anybody?”
“Congressman, I truly am in assist of some guidelines…” Chew responded earlier than one other interruption from Pallone. “I didn’t ask you about guidelines, I requested you whether or not the corporate TikTok would decide to not promote knowledge to anybody.”
“I can get again to you on the main points,” Chew stated.
Whereas many corporations promote knowledge, most main social networks like Fb don’t, as it could be too helpful to their opponents. There’s extra money to be made by hoarding private info. It could be a surprising departure from the norm if TikTok did promote knowledge. Throughout Mark Zuckerberg’s personal congressional testimony in 2019, the CEO harassed that promoting knowledge isn’t a part of Meta’s enterprise. “We don’t promote folks’s knowledge, though it’s typically reported that we do.” Google makes related guarantees.
“As we state in our privateness coverage, we don’t promote private info,” TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan stated in an e-mail. TikTok stated that the definition of the phrase promote is up for debate, as California’s privateness legislation defines any transmission of information for promoting functions as a “sale.” The corporate clarified that it does use knowledge for focused promoting, however doesn’t trade knowledge for cash.
