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| The Trump administration increases the screws on Chinese Tencent |
After the President's administration (Donald Trump) sanctioned the so-called WeChat app earlier this year, it is clearly focused on China's Tencent as it is investigating data collection policies for US companies Tencent belongs to.
Bloomberg reported that CFIUS has sent letters to League of Legends developer Riot Games and Fortnite Epic Games developer inquiring about security arrangements for handling personal information for Americans.
Tencent owns 40% of Riot Games and Epic Games, as well as full ownership of several other companies. Some of these companies are also getting messages, Bloomberg said.
(Epic Games) is also known for Fortnite, along with other popular games like Rocket League, and Riot Games is known for (League of Legends) along with the game (Valorant).
Both companies offer games with hundreds of millions of players.
Tencent is the largest gaming company in the world. Not only does the company own a majority of (Epic Games) and 100% of the shares of (Riot Games), but also invest in (Supercell), (Ubisoft), (Activision) and other well-known gaming companies.
The report does not specify the specific questions that should be asked, but it does address public concern that Chinese government agencies have access to the private data that apps collect in the United States.
The news surfaced shortly before the US Commerce Department ordered on September 20 that app stores should remove WeChat and TikTok from ByteDance.
People who have installed TikTok will be able to use it at least until November 12, after the US presidential election. However, WeChat's technical limitations make it difficult to operate.
Fortnite is not currently available on the iOS and Android app stores. However, this is due to another legal battle over the in-app purchase policy.
After taking action on popular smartphone apps (TikTok) and (WeChat), the Trump administration appears to be targeting game studios to focus more on Tencent.
The Trump administration has not sued Tencent over other important actions and is avoiding popular games like League of Legends, but the CFIUS investigation may indicate closer scrutiny of Tencent's subsidiaries.