China\u2019s Tencent negotiates Riot & Epic Games ownership with US amid national security concerns Riot Games \/ Epic Games \/ TencentIn the wake of national security concerns over data privacy, Chinese company Tencent are reportedly negotiating with the US government in order to maintain their ownership stakes in Riot Games and Epic Games. Since late-2020, the United States of America\u2019s Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) has been pushing for Tencent Holdings Ltd, a Chinese company, to divest holdings in both Riot and Epic Games. Tencent, a Chinese technology conglomerate holding company, owns 100% of Riot, 40% of Epic, and minority stakes in other major North American companies as well (such as Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, Discord, and Roblox). Considering the popularity of Riot\u2019s titles (e.g. League of Legends) and Epic\u2019s Fortnite battle royale, US governmental pressure has maintained that Tencent\u2019s data collection is a foreign security concern. But Reuters\u2019 Greg Roumeliotis reports that the company is pushing back and working to maintain its investments. According to Reuters sources, Tencent are \u201cnegotiating agreements with a U.S. national security panel\u201d in order to maintain ownership over Riot and Epic Games. This continues ongoing discussions, dating back to 2020, surrounding data collection and privacy concerns for American citizens. As sources specify, the chief concern for the CFIUS is what Tencent\u2019s data collection practices look like and if their \u201chandling of the personal data of their users constitutes a national security risk because of their Chinese ownership.\u201d At the moment, it is unclear exactly how these negotiations are going \u2014 but there are some reasonable expectations based on past precedent. The fact that discussions are ongoing suggests that various options remain at play. The US government has a publicly visible aversion to foreign data collection as well as growing tension with the Chinese government, both evidenced in news stories throughout the past couple years. While Epic Games maintain that they do not share any user data with Tencent, those same assurances cannot hold fast for Riot \u2014 of which Tencent enjoys 100% ownership. As far as suggested solutions in order to maintain Tencent\u2019s ownership, there are few details but several possibilities. The majority of those considerations will surround continuing Tencent\u2019s ownership, but limiting the company\u2019s involvement in operations or ensuring independent auditors oversee data management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China\u2019s Tencent negotiates Riot & Epic Games ownership with US amid national security concerns Riot Games \/ Epic Games \/ TencentIn the wake of national security concerns over data privacy, Chinese company Tencent are reportedly negotiating with the US government in order to maintain their ownership stakes in Riot Games and Epic Games. Since late-2020, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21823\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}