TikTok owner ByteDance would prefer to shut down its loss-making app rather than sell it if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the U.S., four sources said.
ByteDance has 270 days (+90 days at president discretion) to divest of TikTok and sell to an entity not affiliated with an “adversary country” (China, Iran, Russia, N. Korea).
If they don’t sell, hosting providers of TikTok application (servers, storage, app store, etc) will be fined up to $500 times the number of users in the US if they continue to host the application
ISPs are explicitly excluded from the bill, and not considered data brokers, which is what the restrictions apply to.
So basically, the law will not require ISPs to block access to TikTok domains and IP addresses. Google search results are also explicitly excluded from the term data broker, and exempt from the restrictions. The only requirement is for app stores to stop hosting the application, so existing installations of the app (after January 2025 assuming ByteDance doesn’t sell) will presumably persist and can be used, even if TikTok is banned.
No need to guess, it’s all outlined in the bill:
So basically, the law will not require ISPs to block access to TikTok domains and IP addresses. Google search results are also explicitly excluded from the term data broker, and exempt from the restrictions. The only requirement is for app stores to stop hosting the application, so existing installations of the app (after January 2025 assuming ByteDance doesn’t sell) will presumably persist and can be used, even if TikTok is banned.