Oracle reportedly wins deal for TikTok’s US operations as ‘trusted tech partner’

[Karlston]

Oracle reportedly wins deal for TikTok’s US operations as ‘trusted tech partner’

Deal comes an hour after Microsoft’s failed attempt 

Photo by Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Oracle has reportedly won a deal to manage TikTok’s US cloud operations. Oracle had been rumored to be part of the bidding process to acquire TikTok, but The Wall Street Journal reports that the company has been selected as a “trusted tech partner” instead. This is different from an outright sale, and appears to suggest Oracle will be helping run TikTok’s US operations with its own cloud technologies.

 

News of an Oracle deal comes just an hour after Microsoft revealed it was no longer acquiring TikTok after its bid was rejected by TikTok owner ByteDance. Microsoft had been pursuing a deal to buy TikTok’s operations in the US, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. It’s clear talks have swayed away from a full acquisition, with Oracle reportedly winning the bid to be a technology partner instead.

 

President Trump signed an executive order August 6th blocking all transactions with ByteDance, and the order demanded an American company purchase TikTok’s US business. The EO was intended to take effect within 45 days, but the president signed a follow-up order giving ByteDance 90 days to sell or spin off TikTok in the US. That order was a result of an investigation of the company by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), which oversees foreign acquisitions of US companies for any potential security risks.

 

Oracle has a history of collaboration with the US government, making its partnership with TikTok a strategic move amid the growing undercurrent of Chinese opposition running through the White House and Congress.

 

 

Oracle reportedly wins deal for TikTok’s US operations as ‘trusted tech partner’

 

[Matt]

TikTok is the worse idea that smartphone has brought to this world. 

[cosy]

Oh, what a shame!

Even if I'm not a supporter of this app, I feel no one should bulldoze another, because of nationality or whatever.

We are in an open world and everyone can make one's inventions.

Now these people are being forced into an unwanted partnership.

[Alanon]

Am I the only one who thinks all this has a sinister feel to it? America's privacy laws are a joke, and the technocratic conglomerates gorge themselves on all that user data with impunity. They do so with open approval of the government who feels free to sneak a peek every now and then because they gave themselves such authority. Yet all of a sudden it's the integrity and safety of user data that's in question here?

 

American users' data won't be any safer in America, it'll just be more easily accessible to American-licenced spies. If anything, that information would be less dangerous in the hands of some Chinese coder. What's he going to do with the browsing habits of a 19 year-old guy? Tik Tok's algorithm can't sell him anything, or show him Facebook ads, or direct his Google searches, or determine who his friends are, or do anything with where he lives. Give that data to Google and see what happens.

 

It seems we're headed towards a world of nationalised data harvesting. Spying is already tacitly accepted as the new normal, as if it should be expected to be prevalent, open and pervasive. But it's somehow better that your own government do it? It's better that the people who can exploit that data much better and with much greater consequences to you personally hold all the reins?

[Arachnoid]

It sounds like this has a long way to play yet given its not an outright buy out, that said the oracle agreement will give US intelligence agencies access to otherwise locked data streams plus the enhanced track and trace that comes with it.

[vitorio]

4 hours ago, Matt said:

TikTok is the worse idea that smartphone has brought to this world. 

Can you expand on this view, please. Thanks.

[Matt]

2 hours ago, vitorio said:

Can you expand on this view, please. Thanks.

 

The application didn't add any value nor knowledge to the world.  

[IronLotus]

An app with pure nonsense 😛

[masterupc]

Well... Oracle is well known for bringing down every business it touches...
😬

[ghost]

6 hours ago, Matt said:

 

The application didn't add any value nor knowledge to the world.  

I don't entirely disagree. But I also think its brings out creativity in people in a silly somewhat funny way.

 

PS: TIKTOK is no worse than Instagram. Shallow people showing off how their lives are better than yours; Just look at that Bilzerian guy.

[ghost]

TikTok: What is Oracle and why does it want the video-sharing app?

Oracle founder and chairman Larry Ellison is worth about $75bn (£57.3bn), according to Forbes

 

 

Software giant Oracle is believed to be the frontrunner in the bidding war for short-form video app TikTok.

 

Microsoft dropped out of negotiations with Chinese-company Bytedance on Sunday night, after which Reuters reported that Oracle would become its technology partner and assume management of TikTok's US user data.

 

The partnership should address US security concerns but not be a complete sale, sources told the agency.

 

However, Chinese state media has said Bytedance will not sell its US operations outright, nor will it share TikTok's source code.

Oracle's security roots

Oracle sells database technology and cloud systems to businesses. It was one of the first companies to help clients structure their records in this way.

 

Co-founder and current chairman Larry Ellison named the company after the codename given to a project for its first customer, in 1975: the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

 

The firm was founded two years later and went on to complete contracts for the CIA, Navy Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence and the National Security Agency.

 

News site Gizmodo has detailed Oracle's involvement with US government intelligence community, and says it is relationship that has been "frequently ignored by people

who like to pretend Oracle was just another humble Silicon Valley start-up".

 

But its clients and cloud-based services now extend far wider, from serving auto-makers including Mazda and Yamaha to retailers such as the UK's Co-op and Debenhams chains.

 

Oracle's technologies can be used to keep track of everything, Mr Ellison has said.

 

"The information about your banks, your checking balance, your savings balance, is stored in an Oracle database," he said in Jeffery Rosen's 2004 book The Naked Crowd.

 

"Your airline reservation is stored in an Oracle database. What books you bought on Amazon is stored in an Oracle database. Your profile on Yahoo! is stored in an Oracle database… Privacy is already gone."

 

A safe choice?

The US administration claims TikTok and other Chinese apps are national security threats which is why - given its history in intelligence - Oracle might be considered a trustworthy option.

 

"On the surface, Oracle and TikTok don't seem like bedfellows," said Chris Stokel-Walker, author of a forthcoming book about the platform.

 

"Oracle is a relatively boring business-to-business company, whereas TikTok is a youth-centred, casual app.

 

"But there is underlying geopolitics. If [US President Donald] Trump's fears around TikTok are rooted in security, the company would be a safer bet."

 

President Donald Trump has previously indicated he would support Oracle's involvement

 

Mr Ellison - who is ranked the world's fifth richest person by Forbes - has been openly supportive of President Trump and held a fundraiser for him in February.

 

The president had previously said he thought Oracle was best placed to seal the TikTok deal.

 

"I think Oracle is a great company, and I think its owner is a tremendous guy," Mr Trump said last month. "He's a tremendous person. I think that Oracle would be certainly somebody that could handle it."

TikTok deadlines:

• 15 September: Deadline given by President Trump for Bytedance to find a deal
• 20 September: Executive order due to come into effect prohibiting companies under US jurisdiction doing business with Bytedance
• 12 November: Second executive order comes into effect, giving Bytedance a deadline to fully divest the US assets of TikTok

But any deal would require the approval of both American and Chinese governments - and Chinese state media has reported that Bytedance will not sell the company to Oracle.

 

Oracle has been accused of hostility towards China, after firing 900 staff from its team in the country last year, in the same week additional tariffs on Chinese goods were introduced in the US.

 

Employees blamed tensions between the US and China for the cuts.

 

'Tech partnership'

It is understood that Oracle's involvement in TikTok will not be an outright sale but instead a "tech partnership", the Wall Street Journal and Reuters report.

That suggests the US firm's control over the business would be limited.

 

Two weeks ago, China announced new government restrictions on tech exports. They mean some technologies involving artificial intelligence techniques need government approval before any sale to a foreign entity takes place.

 

Many view the way TikTok decides which videos to recommend to whom and when as being its key asset, and it may be that Oracle will not be allowed to know exactly how it works or make use of it for other purposes,

 

"A deal where Oracle takes over hosting without source code and significant operational changes would not address any of the legitimate concerns about TikTok, and the White House accepting such a deal would demonstrate that this exercise was pure grift," Alex Stamos, former chief security officer at Facebook, tweeted.

 

But another expert thinks the partnership could work.

 

"The security element with Oracle could ease tensions, but it can also help TikTok be a bit more mature in its outlook," said Tamara Littleton, founder of The Social Element consultancy.

 

"TikTok is struggling to control its content at the moment, and its revered algorithm can work against it sometimes. Oracle's experience could help to fix some of these problems."

 

TikTok and Oracle both declined to comment when contacted by the BBC.

 

 

BBC.com

[Arachnoid]

18 hours ago, Matt said:

 

The application didn't add any value nor knowledge to the world.  

 One could say that about a vast majority of the apps available for mobile devices, its chewing gum for the eyes much like a lot of the media transmitted on the airwaves to your television. As technology has grown man has not grown with it ,they have become lazier and more complacent of its failure as they are more reliant on it to do their mental work. Just go into a shop where the tills are down and see how many people can actual add up the cost of several items in their heads.