The 10 Craziest Moments From Congress’ TikTok Ban Hearing

At several points, Chew avoided direct questions about whether TikTok sells the collected data.

“I don’t think we sell data to data brokers,” Chew responded to a question from Rep. Frank Pallone. “I didn’t ask you about data brokers,” Pallone said. “Are you selling it to someone?”

“Congressman, I actually support some rules…” Chew replied before Pallone interrupted again. “I wasn’t asking you about rules, I was asking you if the TikTok company would commit to not selling data to anyone.”

“I can get back to you with the details,” Chew said.

While many companies sell data, most are big social networks like Facebook not because it would be too valuable for their competitors. There is more money to be made by hoarding personal information. It would be a shocking departure from the norm if TikTok started selling data. While Mark Zuckerberg’s own testimony before Congress In 2019, the CEO emphasized that selling data was not part of Meta’s business. “We don’t sell human data, even though it’s widely reported.” Google makes similar promises.

“As we state in our privacy policy, we do not sell any personally identifiable information,” TikTok spokeswoman Maureen Shanahan said in an email. TikTok said that the definition of the word sale is up for debate because California privacy law defines any transmission of data for advertising purposes as a “sale.” The company clarified that while it uses data for targeted advertising, it does not exchange data for money.