Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Brendan Carr (R) set Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google a July 8 deadline to provide him with statements if they have not removed ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok from their app stores by then.
Why this matters: In letters to Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Carr urged the companies to remove TikTok from their app stores due to security concerns over its data collection and China’s potential access to that personal data. Carr called TikTok a “sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts of personal and sensitive data,” which he said makes the app noncompliant with the companies’ app store policies.