The operations of TikTok are owned by ByteDance Ltd. Thelatter is exploring a sale of the Indian operations to a rival company Glance.
The talks are private as of now, but still some details arebeginning to surface. It is now known that the discussions have been initiatedby SoftBank Group Corp. Of Japan. SoftBank’s role is in Glance’s parent InMobiPte as well as TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance.
Thus, it can be seen that an innocent short-video sharingapp has big money behind it.
The discussion involves four parties – SoftBank, ByteDance,Glance, and the Indian authorities.
The Indian government, like USA and its counterparts in Europe,is likely to mandate that the data of the Indian users never leaves Indianborders.
A further complication is the Chinese government’soverseeing export of any Chinese technology.
Once TikTok was banned, dozens of Indian apps built on thesame theme entered the marketplace.