August 21, 2026, 23:20 GMT | Insight
TikTok on Friday settled its lawsuit with the
US Department of Justice for alleged violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act for $400 million — a reduction, MLex has learned, from a 2024 settlement offer by the company of $1 billion.
TikTok on Friday settled its lawsuit with the US Department of Justice for alleged violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act for $400 million — a reduction, MLex has learned, from a 2024 settlement offer by the company of $1 billion.
TikTok had also offered to change its behavior toward young users, it is understood, but the Biden administration rejected the offer and sought additional relief. MLex could not confirm the relief TikTok was said to have offered.
The settlement announced with TikTok on Friday does not impose any injunctive relief on the company and voids TikTok's 2019 consent decree with the
US Federal Trade Commission that said if the company violated COPPA it would be in contempt of court (see
here).
While Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. has called the settlement "a major victory for American children and parents," advocates are saying it is a sweetheart deal for the company.
TikTok will pay $300 million immediately and an additional $100 million once a court order vacates a prior consent decree entered against its predecessor, Musical.ly.
"For $400 million TikTok has bought its way out of protecting children's privacy," said Josh Golin, executive director of FairPlay, an organization dedicated to ending marketing to children. "Not only does this get rid of their old obligations through their 2019 order, it doesn't impose any injunctive relief. It's shocking what a sweetheart deal TikTok got."
The FTC has used COPPA settlements to implement restrictions on companies' conduct related to children. The agency's largest COPPA settlement — $520 million with EPIC Games in 2022 — required the company to implement stronger safety and privacy settings for kids and teens, including turning voice and text communications off for children (see
here).
More recently, the FTC under Chairman Andrew Ferguson, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, required Disney to establish and implement a program to review whether videos it posted to
YouTube should be designated as "marked for kids" as part of a $10 million settlement (see
here).
The TikTok lawsuit was brought under Ferguson's predecessor, former Chair Lina Khan, where the Democrat-led FTC voted 3-0-2 to refer the lawsuit to the DOJ (see
here). Ferguson, who had joined the commission a few months prior, was one of the two who abstained from the vote.
The FTC referred the suit to the DOJ after a probe by the commission "uncovered reason to believe named defendants are violating or are about to violate the law and that a proceeding is in the public interest," the commission wrote at the time (see
here).
Former FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar said TikTok's conduct was "by far the worst" in a post to X criticizing the settlement.
"It's a Trump bailout of his billionaire buddy Larry Ellison. TikTok's children's privacy violations were by far the worst of any investigation we did. The Trump Vance DOJ announces a fraction of a real fine and cleared the consent decree so they can keep preying on kids," Farrar said.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Data Privacy & Security
Industries:
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Geographies:
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Topics:
Child Privacy