Apple and Google Both Return TikTok to App Stores, After Letter of ‘Assurance’ From Attorney General Pam Bondi

Jay Peters and Alex Heath, reporting for The Verge:

Nearly a month after it was banned in the US, TikTok has returned to the App Store for iPhones and other Apple devices as well as the Google Play store for Android phones and tablets.

The return follows US Attorney General Pam Bondi sending a letter to Apple assuring that it won’t be fined for hosting the app, according to Bloomberg, which first reported that the app would return.

From Mark Gurman’s brief report for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. will restore ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok to the US App Store on Thursday, following a letter from US Attorney General Pam Bondi, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

I’m surprised but not shocked by this. But I’d sure like to see what exactly that letter says. The PAFACA Act — the law that bans TikTok in the US now that the deadline has passed for ByteDance to sell it to a US company — hasn’t changed or been rescinded, and the current delay in enforcement has no basis in law. Neither Apple nor Google, wisely, have been talking publicly about this at all, but it seems clear that they’ve been acting in concert throughout the process. It is not a coincidence that they both de-listed and now re-listed TikTok simultaneously.

Also, still no idea how this is going to end, because I really don’t think the CCP is going to allow ByteDance to sell TikTok. And there are Republicans in the Senate — e.g. Tom Cotton — who stand behind the sell-or-you’re-banned law.

★ Thursday, 13 February 2025