TikTok-Microsoft talks won’t affect India ban as local operations of app not part of negotiations

New Delhi: TikTok will see no respite from its ban in India, a top government official told ET, as the local operations of the Chinese short video app is not included in parent ByteDance’s ongoing negotiations to sell the company to Microsoft Corporation. Along with 58 other Chinese-owned apps, TikTok was banned by India in June due to concerns over its alleged data-sharing practices with Chinese authorities. Following India’s move, the Donald Trump administration indicated that it might also follow suit, triggering a proposal to sell the company’s operations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.“We are concerned with TikTok India and the deal does not include it... The question of a change in stance (over the ban) will arise only if there is a change in its (TikTok’s) ownership in India,” said the official cited above.The ongoing negotiations between ByteDance and Microsoft are expected to conclude by September 15, according to a statement by the American company on August 2.Decision ‘Surprising’Trump had earlier advocated a ban on TikTok through an executive order despite news that Microsoft was in talks to buy TikTok in the US.Experts termed the decision — to keep India operations out of the negotiations — as “surprising”. India is the largest market for the Chinese app in terms of users. 77341374“It’s possible that they (Microsoft) were not offered the Indian operations as part of the deal, said Parminder Jeet Singh, executive director of the think-tank IT for Change.“ Maybe the company (ByteDance) has different plans for India.”At the time of its ban, TikTok had over 200 million users in India and had begun to monetise its business.Singh, who was a member of the government-constituted committee on non-personal data, said the “(Indian) government would not persist with the ban if a company like Microsoft buys TikTok and makes the same promise as it has in the US to keep data of Indians in India,” he said.TikTok declined to comment on ET’s queries and pointed to a blog by its India head Nikhil Gandhi last week that said the company did not share Indian user’s data with any foreign government and that it will also not do so in future.Following the ban on the 59 Chinese apps, the union government sent a detailed questionnaire to the companies about their data sharing practices, country of incorporation, advertisers, business structures, taxation practices and privacy policies.The government also asked the app companies whether they had faced any investigation in the US, European Union or elsewhere for harvesting user data.The deadline for the companies to submit their responses expired last week. “The Union government is evaluating the responses given by the companies,” the official said.Analysts are of the view that TikTok’s ability to recover from the ban on its Indian operations may prove harder due to the crackdown in the US and selective sale to Microsoft.“Waiting it out for the (India) ban to get lifted now seems less probable with other global powers also expressing concerns,” said Urvashi Aneja, founding director of Tandem Research. “Association of TikTok as a symbol representing Chinese tech companies is not easy to dilute,” she said.On its part, Microsoft pursued discussions to acquire TikTok after its CEO Satya Nadella had a conversation with President Trump. “Microsoft would ensure that all private data of TikTok’s American users is transferred to and remains in the United States. To the extent that any such data is currently stored or backed-up outside the United States, Microsoft would ensure that this data is deleted from servers outside the country after it is transferred,” the company said in its statement on Sunday.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/3gtXFt6