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TikTok, the company behind the namesake popular short-form video app, has agreed to pay $400 million to settle a U.S. government lawsuit alleging it violated the country’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
The Justice Department announced the settlement with TikTok and China-based ByteDance on Friday. Under the terms of the agreement, TikTok will pay $300 million immediately to the U.S. government and an additional $100 million “upon entry of an order vacating a prior consent decree entered against TikTok’s predecessor, Musical.ly,” the DOJ said.
The $400 million settlement represents one of the largest recoveries ever obtained in a case involving COPPA, a law that requires websites and online services aimed at kids to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13.
The lawsuit was filed during the Biden administration in August 2024, when the DOJ, together with the FTC, sued TikTok and ByteDance in California federal court, alleging that TikTok “knowingly permitted children to create regular TikTok accounts and to create, view and share short-form videos and messages with adults and others on the regular TikTok platform.” The DOJ alleged at the time that TikTok collected and retained a “wide variety of personal information from these children without notifying or obtaining consent from their parents.”
Since the Justice Department filed the complaint in 2024, “TikTok has undergone significant changes to its ownership, management, compliance functions and privacy practices,” the agency said in announcing the settlement. “The company has implemented extensive measures designed to strengthen safeguards for younger users, improve age-related controls, and enhance parental oversight. Those developments have materially advanced the public interests underlying the Department’s litigation and have strengthened protections for millions of American families.”
In January 2026, under a deal brokered by the Trump administration, ByteDance sold a majority stake in TikTok’s U.S. business to non-Chinese investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi’s state-owned investment firm MGX. Beijing-based ByteDance retains 19.9% of the joint venture; the deal brought ByteDance and TikTok into compliance with the U.S.’s TikTok divest-or-ban law that went into effect in January 2025.
In a statement, U.S. Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. said: “This settlement is a major victory for American children and parents. The Department’s priority is ensuring that children are protected online and that companies entrusted with their personal information meet their legal obligations. This resolution secures a substantial recovery while reinforcing the protections that families expect and deserve.”
Variety has reached out to TikTok and ByteDance for comment.
In 2019, TikTok agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle FTC allegations that its predecessor app, Musical.ly, illegally collected personal info from children in violation of COPPA. The agency said at the time it was the largest civil penalty ever obtained in a children’s privacy case.
