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The European Commission has closed an investigation into TikTok Lite's rewards mechanism, accepting a commitment from the company to permanently remove the program from the EU market.
This is stated on the website of the European Commission, reports Ukrinform.
TikTok Lite's rewards feature, launched in France and Spain, allowed users to earn points for in-app activities such as watching and liking videos. These points can be exchanged for vouchers or gift cards. TikTok Lite is an alternative version of the TikTok app with less bandwidth that the company offers in some markets.
The Commission has reached a settlement with TikTok, which means that the EC has not formally found TikTok to be in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) and therefore no fines have been imposed. However, TikTok is obliged to close TikTok Lite in the EU market, and must not attempt to circumvent its obligations, such as launching the same feature under a different name or rolling out a version.
If TikTok defaults, the company could be subject to immediate sanctions, which include fines of up to 6% of global annual turnover without the need for a new investigation.
The commission also said it will monitor TikTok's compliance with its obligations.
TikTok temporarily suspended the use of the rewards mechanism in the EU shortly after the Commission opened its investigation.
The European Union later asked ByteDance, which owns TikTok, to conduct a risk assessment of the new Lite app over concerns about its impact on users' mental health.
