TikTok Returns to the App Store (For Now)
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TikTok fans can rejoice as Apple and Google have returned the beleaguered app to their respective app marketplaces.
If you haven’t been keeping up, TikTok spent most of 2024 facing a looming ban that was scheduled to go into effect on January 19 if the company failed to find a new owner that wasn’t part of an “adversarial foreign government” (that is to say, someone than China). Parent company ByteDance refused to sell, fighting the case all the way up to the Supreme Court, which upheld the ban.
While TikTok did have to endure a shutdown in the US in the wee hours of January 19, then-President-elect Donald Trump, who would take office the next day, provided his guarantee that he’d be extending the deadline. TikTok’s US server provider, Oracle, decided that Trump’s word was good enough and turned the switch back on after only a few hours of the service being dark.
Since then, it’s been business as usual for most TikTok users, as the service has been humming along just fine. However, the US law that banned TikTok also required Apple and Google to remove TikTok (and all other apps owned by ByteDance) from their respective app marketplaces. Both complied around the same time Oracle took TikTok offline but didn’t reverse course when Trump promised to save TikTok from the ban.
That’s because there’s a lot at stake for both companies. President Trump doesn’t have the authority to overturn the ban outright. It came from a bill passed by Congress with broad bipartisan support, and Presidential Executive Orders can’t summarily change the law. Instead, Trump ordered the Justice Department, which is part of the Executive Branch, not to enforce the order regarding the ban for 75 days.
Trump’s choice to go this way seems a bit unusual, as the legislation already includes a provision that would allow the President to extend the deadline by 90 days if a viable deal was on the table. However, no such deal exists (although Trump is actively working on facilitating a deal from several angles). Further, it’s unclear if the President has the authority to extend the deadline once it’s already passed.
Regardless, the 75-day delay gave Oracle enough confidence to turn TikTok back on. Still, with a fine of up to $5,000 for each user who downloads the TikTok app from the App Store or Google Play Store and 170 million TikTok users, Apple and Google had reason to be cautious. The law is still the law, and there’s no guarantee that it wouldn’t be enforced if Trump’s Executive Order were to be challenged. If that happened, the two companies could face hundreds of billions of dollars in penalties.
To be fair, this was a relatively low-stakes decision for the two tech giants. TikTok remained installed for those who already had it before the ban, which most active users of the service did. Hence, its removal from the App Store and Play Store only prevented the app from being installed by new users or by those switching to a new device. In the long term, it would also prevent updates to the app from being distributed, which could cause compatibility problems with new iOS and Android releases.
However, it appears that the Trump Administration has given both companies enough assurances to allow them to restore TikTok to their app marketplaces without fear of reprisal. Last night, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman was first to report that newly-sworn-in Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Apple and Google yesterday telling them that “a ban wouldn’t immediately be enforced.”
The text of the letter has not been shared, but it’s fair to say that a written guarantee from the US Attorney General is good enough to protect Apple and Google against any potential litigation. TikTok returned to the App Store and Play Store within hours of the news breaking, returning things to normal — for now.
It remains to be seen how long that will last. The clock is still ticking for TikTok, as President Trump’s Executive Order is set to expire in April. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act still requires that TikTok be sold to a company in a more friendly nation, and ByteDance maintains that TikTok is not for sale under any terms. The President could presumably issue another extension If a deal hasn’t been reached by April, but there may be a limit to Congress’ patience in this matter.
