MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th September, 2020) ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of video-sharing app TikTok will not be selling parts of TikTok's operations to Microsoft, the American tech giant has announced.
"ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok's US operations to Microsoft. We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok's users, while protecting national security interests," microsoft said in a Sunday statement.
In August, US President Donald Trump threatened to ban TikTok and WeChat by September 15 if they are not sold to a US company. This triggered a lawsuit from TikTok owner ByteDance and sparked further diplomatic tensions with China.
ByteDance was in talks with Microsoft and Oracle on the possible sale of TikTok.
Fox news reported on Sunday that ByteDance had chosen Oracle to be its US tech partner in the US.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter, that Oracle was going to be announced as TikTok's "trusted tech partner," but that the deal was probably not going to be structured as an outright sale.
In August, the Soufan Group said in a report that TikTok threatens personal privacy by collecting data such as a user's location and phone contact lists, but that can also be said of US-based applications such as Twitter and Facebook.
