By Matt O'Brien, AP Technology Writer
The popular short-form video app TikTok, still under U.S. government scrutiny for its Chinese ownership, is moving closer to becoming a marketplace for buying stuff.
Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify said Tuesday it's made a deal with TikTok enabling merchants to create "shoppable" video ads that drive customers to online stores.
The partnership was announced Tuesday amid stalled negotiations for Walmart to buy a 7.5% stake in the video app. Walmart's planned investment is part of a government-forced deal that would rescue TikTok from a threatened ban by President Donald Trump and advance Walmart's ambitions for the world of "social commerce."
"If you're watching a TikTok video and somebody's got a piece of apparel or an item on it that you really like, what if you could just quickly purchase that item?" Walmart CEO Doug McMillon told CNBC earlier this month. "That's what we're seeing happen in countries around the world. And it's intriguing to us, and we would like to be part of it."
ByteDance, the Beijing-based company that owns TikTok, already runs a thriving social media marketplace on Douyin, its twin video app for the Chinese market. Buying products through social media websites isn't yet as common in the U.S., though Pinterest and Facebook-owned Instagram have made some inroads and TikTok last year began making it easier for businesses to link to themselves from the app.
Shopify said its merchants will be able to select which product they would like to promote. Then, video ads will be automatically generated that could show up in a TikTok user's video feed and drive customers to Shopify for checkout.
TikTok said in a prepared statement Tuesday that Ottawa-based Shopify will be a "perfect partner to help us grow and expand our commerce capabilities globally."
It's not clear what the partnership means for TikTok's negotiations with Walmart. Walmart and Shopify are on good terms, having teamed up against Amazon in June on a deal that enables Shopify's small businesses to get listed on Walmart.com.
Trump said over the summer he would shut down TikTok unless ByteDance sold its U.S. assets to an American company, citing concerns about the potential for the Chinese government to spy on users' data.
ByteDance in September proposed to U.S. authorities a partnership with Walmart, California tech company Oracle and other American investors designed to relieve national security concerns about the app. Trump expressed support for the idea but officials haven't formally approved it.
Trump's attempt to ban TikTok was also delayed until after next week's U.S. presidential election after the company sued in federal court to halt the order.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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