Plus, the U.S. sanctions the Beijing firm behind the Salt Typhoon telecom hacks. And former European Leaders call for a breakup of Google’s ad-tech business. Belle Lin hosts.
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[00:00:31] Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Friday, January 17. I'm Belle Lin for The Wall Street Journal. The Supreme Court has unanimously upheld a federal law requiring TikTok's Chinese owners to sell or shut down the social media app by January 19. The court sided with Congress's national security concerns over TikTok and its users' claim that the ban violates the First Amendment.
[00:01:00] Today's ruling means the platform used by over 170 million Americans could go dark, at least temporarily, on Sunday. WSJ reporter Jess Bravin spoke with our What's News podcast about the court's decision. They focused on one of the two prongs that the government cited as justification for the law, and that was the massive data collection that TikTok undertakes. The area that they sidestepped was the
[00:01:27] other justification, which was the ability of China or the Chinese owners or the Chinese government to manipulate the information that TikTok serves up to Americans. The court really walked past that argument. President-elect Trump and his allies are trying to find a political path forward to assuage national security concerns and rescue the app. In a TikTok video, CEO Sho Chu thanked Trump for being committed to
[00:01:56] working to find a solution that keeps it in the U.S., and he said TikTok would do everything in its power to ensure that it thrives. The Biden administration has sanctioned a Chinese company that it said was behind the vast salt typhoon cyber intrusions into U.S. telecom networks. The hacks swept up phone calls of scores of U.S. government officials as well as those of incoming President Donald Trump. The Treasury
[00:02:22] Department said that Sichuan Junxihe Network technology company was directly involved in the compromises of the telecom firms. Separately, U.S. authorities sanctioned a Shanghai-based hacker whom they alleged was involved in an unrelated breach of sensitive systems within the Treasury Department itself. Neither could immediately be reached for comment. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington
[00:02:48] did not immediately respond to a request for comment. And a group of 18 former European heads of state have called on the European Commission to break up Google's highly lucrative ad tech business. They claim that the business erodes Europe's media landscape. The EU's antitrust regulator is in the final stages of an investigation into Google's ad tech business. It sent formal charges to the tech giant in 2023,
[00:03:15] suggesting it could order Google to divest part of the business. A Google spokesperson said that the company disagrees with the European Commission's view and that it has been, quote, engaging constructively. The company added that it is committed to creating value for publishers and advertisers. We're off on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Tuesday's Tech News Briefing podcast.