In brief
TikTok agreed to pay $400 million to the United States to resolve a 2024 lawsuit that accused the platform of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting data from over 170 million users under the age of 13 without parental consent. The settlement marks one of the largest penalties for COPPA violations, surpassing past fines paid by YouTube and Epic Games. The deal dovetails with a separate $300 million payment made to the DOJ and a $100 million payment tied to the FTC deal for Musically in 2019. The agreement reflects changes TikTok has made to its privacy practices and user controls in the wake of federal scrutiny. The settlement comes after the platform’s US operations were divested, leaving TikTok controlled 81 % by a consortium of investors and 19 % by ByteDance.
TikTok has agreed to pay $400 million to the United States to end a lawsuit that alleged it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting data on millions of users under 13 without parental consent.
The lawsuit, filed by the Department of Justice in 2024, charged that the app gathered vast amounts of data from young users, which is prohibited under the 2000 law that protects children’s online privacy.
The $400 million figure places the deal among the largest penalties ever imposed for COPPA violations, following YouTube’s $170 million fine in 2019 and Epic Games’ $275 million payment in 2022.
In addition to the immediate payment of $300 million to the DOJ, TikTok and its parent company ByteDance will issue a further $100 million when the U.S. government vacates the FTC’s 2019 consent decree that originally resolved a Musically‑related COPPA violation.
This settlement marks one of the first times a foreign‑owned social media company paid a substantial fine to the U.S. government, reflecting changes to privacy practices, ownership and platform controls for young users since the DOJ’s filing.
