TikTok to pay $400 million in DOJ settlement over children's privacy

TikTok settles the DOJ's COPPA case

TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have agreed to pay $400 million to the U.S. Department of Justice, closing a lawsuit that accused the platform of breaking federal children's privacy law. The DOJ announced the settlement on Friday, according to The Verge, which reports that the agency described the figure as among the biggest monetary recoveries it has secured under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, better known as COPPA. Axios was first to report the news, TechCrunch notes.

The lawsuit dates to 2024, when the DOJ — operating under the Biden administration at the time — took TikTok to court over its treatment of young users. The government argued that millions of children under 13 were active on the platform and that TikTok collected their personal information without telling parents or getting their consent. According to The Verge, the DOJ also accused the company of failing to delete children's accounts after parents requested it.

What the government alleged

TechCrunch reports that the case went further than passive collection. Prosecutors claimed TikTok kept and used children's information — including data that could feed targeted advertising — even after employees internally flagged the presence of underage users. The complaint also said TikTok changed parts of its sign-up process in ways that made it harder to tell whether new users were old enough to join.

Those allegations carried weight partly because TikTok had been here before. In 2019 the company paid $5.7 million to settle claims that its predecessor, Musical.ly, violated COPPA, and it committed to stopping children under 13 from creating accounts. The DOJ's later suit argued that TikTok still struggled to identify and remove underage users, allowing large numbers of them to remain on the service for years.

How the payment is structured

Citing the DOJ's announcement, The Verge breaks the $400 million into two parts: $300 million paid up front, and the remaining $100 million due once a court enters an order vacating the earlier consent decree covering Musical.ly. The final tranche is therefore tied to formally dissolving the 2019 enforcement outcome.

The deal does not require TikTok or ByteDance to admit wrongdoing, according to TechCrunch.

Changes attached to the deal

The DOJ says TikTok has already shifted considerably since the suit was filed, pointing to changes in its ownership, management, compliance operations and privacy practices, The Verge reports. The agency also credits the company with broad changes meant to protect younger users, tighten age-related controls and give parents more oversight of their children's activity and data — commitments the settlement locks in. TikTok did not respond to The Verge's request for comment.

The ownership question matters here: The Verge notes that in January the deal placing TikTok under a new joint ownership structure in the U.S. was finally completed, reshaping who controls the American business.

A week of scrutiny

The settlement landed as TikTok faced fresh criticism over user safety. Days earlier, Bloomberg reported that TikTok had switched off an algorithmic safeguard for roughly 10% of U.S. users as part of an experiment; the feature was built to reduce the chance that users would be overwhelmed by harmful or damaging content. The report drew a letter from Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut to TikTok CEO Shou Chew and Adam Presser, the head of the company's U.S. business, questioning the decision.

Why it matters

A $400 million penalty sits near the top of all COPPA enforcement outcomes, and it signals how regulators now price repeat failures involving children's data. The case is also a warning about consent decrees: TikTok's 2019 promises did not prevent the conduct the DOJ later alleged, which helps explain why this settlement pairs money with ongoing operational commitments rather than relying on voluntary compliance. For the wider industry, it underlines that age verification and parental consent remain the soft spots of social platforms, and that internal employee warnings can resurface as enforcement evidence years later. Finally, by tying $100 million to vacating the Musical.ly decree, the agreement closes a chapter that stretches back nearly a decade while keeping TikTok's handling of its youngest users under continued official scrutiny.