1 week Ago By Peter Holmes
In August TikTok was crowing about its partnership with e-commerce behemoth Amazon, delighted at the amount of advertising coin Amazon was tipping into the video sharing platform. The following month, according to Bloomberg, representatives of Amazon were summoned to Capitol Hill for a closed meeting with US House Select Committee on China. “The Committee, which seeks to address perceived threats posed by China’s government, was concerned that a leading American company central to the economy had partnered with a Chinese-owned company on the verge of being banned over national security concerns,” Bloomberg reported.
US President Joe Biden has signed a law that means TikTok will be banned early in 2025 if ByteDance doesn’t carve it off from the main business and sell it. Screenshot from TikTok video. A spokesperson for the Select Committee told the news site that it “conveyed to Amazon that it is dangerous and unwise for Amazon to partner with TikTok given the grave national security threat the app poses”.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a multinational that was founded in China. The company’s TikTok app has taken off in recent years, and is regularly used by hundreds of millions of people around the world. On August 8 TikTok issued a statement saying it was “excited to collaborate with Amazon to offer a seamless and fun shopping experience”.
“This shopping experience is powered by Amazon through ads placed on TikTok and allows users to complete product purchases with Amazon in TikTok’s native environment,” TikTok said. Amazon Haul. “Shoppers will see Amazon product recommendations on the ‘For You’ feed.
When ready to purchase, users can choose to link their TikTok account to their Amazon account through a secure, quick, and easy one-time set-up.” Users who choose to link their accounts in the US will see real-time pricing, Prime eligibility, delivery estimates, and product details on select Amazon product ads in TikTok “as part of the experience”. Amazon today unveiled Amazon Haul, a mobile-only marketplace where everything is priced at US$20 (A$31) or less.
It is aimed at warding off low-cost competitors such as Walmart, Temu and Alibaba..
