TECH NEWS – The American government is suspicious about the two companies because, in one way or another, Tencent, one of the biggest Chinese tech companies is behind both of them.
Bloomberg reports that those American video game companies that have investments received by Tencent (or if it bought stakes in them) might have to provide further details about their data security protocols. It’s not official, which is why we put the question mark in the title and the word „might” in the previous sentence.
Bloomberg’s sources claim that they have seen the letters that Epic Games and Riot Games received by none other than the CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States), which is chaired by the United States Secretary of the Treasury (meaning it is quite a deep state-run investigation if true!). They investigate to find potential national security risks that might stem from foreign businesses acquiring/investing in American companies. Epic (Unreal Engine, Fortnite…) and Riot (League of Legends) could be investigated over them handling their customers’ private information.
Don’t forget that Riot is wholly owned by Tencent, while the Chinese tech company with ties to the Chinese Communist Party has a 40% stake in Epic. However, Tencent is present elsewhere, too – they have a 5% ownership in Activision Blizzard (probably to get their games officially available in China…), as well as a 15% stake in Glu Mobile, a mobile developer.
Donald Trump, the president of the United States, signed an executive order in August to prohibit transactions between Americans and Tencent (it’ll come into effect next week), mainly affecting WeChat (which will be removed tomorrow from the Google Play and the Apple App Store!), also owned by Tencent. The order does not affect the American game companies with Tencent links… yet?
As the American government also suspects data phishing behind Tiktok, no wonder they are investigating the Tencent links…
Source: Gamesindustry
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