TikTok Hits Pause On Its Most Controversial Privacy Update Yet

Early last month, TikTok users across Europe were told that, starting July 13th, the platform would begin using their on-app data to serve up targeted ads, even if those users didn't consent to the practice. Now, less than a day before that change would have rolled out European Union-wide, it looks like the company's reconsidering things a bit. Gizmodo reports: A company spokesperson told TechCrunch on Tuesday that TikTok is 'pausing' the update while it 'engage[s] on the questions from stakeholders,' about the way it handles personalized ads. And needless to say, there are quite a lot of questions about that right now -- from data protection authorities in the EU, from lawmakers in the US, and from privacy experts pretty much everywhere.

For context: until this point, European users that opened the TikTok app needed to offer express consent to let the company use their data for targeted ads. This update planned to do away with the need for that pesky consent by on a legal basis known as 'legitimate interest' to target those ads instead. In a nutshell, the 'legitimate interest' clause would let TikTok process people's data, consent-free, if it was for a purpose that TikTok deemed reasonable. This means the company could say, for example, that because targeted ads bring in more money than their un-targeted equivalent, it would be reasonable to serve all users -- consenting or otherwise -- targeted ads. Reasonable, right?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.