Important Innovations

  Purchase Would Make Walmart An Online Advertising Leader Source:  Walmart $35b to $45 Billion Purchase Walmart could turn into an online advertising behemoth if its plans with Microsoft  to acquire the US assets of China-owned social media/video app company TikTok go through successfully.  Walmart is the world's largest retailer.  The acquisition of TikTok would make it highly competitive with Amazon, Facebook and Google for young customers on social media.  It would also greatly expand Walmart's advertising business and also its business with 3rd party marketplaces.   Ticking Toward a Deadline President Trump has put the sale of TikTok's US assets into play.  He deems TikTok a potential national security risk because of the vast amount of personal data it acquires on users in the US, which the government of China could demand.  Trump has ordered China based parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok US assets by September 15 or the company will be banned from doing business

Growing Acquisition Interest in US TikTok Operations Source:  TikTok Logo Clock Is Ticking for Microsoft and Reportedly Twitter According to The Wall Street Journal, Twitter has approached TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance to buy the US operations of the video sharing app company with a global user base of 800 million.  The talks are reportedly at the preliminary stage and Twitter has made no formal announcement.  Meanwhile, Microsoft hopes to finalize an agreement to acquire TikTok's US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand by mid-September.  The moving force behind the acquisition scramble is President Donald Trump and his threat to ban Chinese owned TikTok from operating in the US. Vulnerability of Amercans' Personal Data TikTok has come under fire from US lawmakers, particularly President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steve Municin, about the vulnerability of Americans' private information to TikTok data collection,  The key issue is that ByteDance could be compelled by