TNB Tech Minute: Temu Stops Shipping to U.S. - Tech News Briefing
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Victoria Craig: Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Friday, May 2nd. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. Chinese bargain site Temu says it's no longer shipping products directly to customers in the US, a dramatic shift in its business model. It comes as the US ended its longstanding de minimus provision today, that was a trade exemption that let overseas packages valued at $800 or less arrive duty free. A spokesperson from Temu said the shipping changes are, quote, part of Temu's ongoing adjustments to improve service levels. Staying with China, the country's popular social video app, TikTok has been fined $600 million by Ireland's privacy watchdog. It said the company failed to guarantee user data sent to China was protected from government surveillance under Chinese laws governing espionage and cybersecurity. That is a blow to TikTok's efforts to convince Western countries, including the US, that the app is safe to use. The company vowed to appeal the fine and said the decision covers a period of time before it put new protections in place. It also denied that it turns user data over to the Chinese government and it said it hasn't received requests for it to do so. And finally, the maker of Grand Theft Auto issued an apology for delaying the release of the game's next installment, but investors aren't accepting it. Shares of Take-Two Interactive fell 6.7% today after the company's Rockstar Entertainment subsidiary confirmed its hotly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI will now drop a year from now rather than this fall. One analyst said the delay is consistent with the company's track record of putting product quality over hitting deadlines. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Monday's Tech News Briefing podcast.
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