ByteDance Petitions Court to Keep 'Competitively Sensitive' Info Under Seal

TikTok owner ByteDance asked the U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose Tuesday to keep under seal the “competitively sensitive” information it provided as a nonparty to the FTC’s lawsuit to block Meta’s Within Unlimited buy (see 2212040001). “Its public disclosure outweighs the public’s interest in accessing it,” said the ByteDance statement (docket 5:22-cv-04325). If confidential information on product development, business strategies and internal evaluations in Meta’s second amended exhibit list were disclosed, “ByteDance’s competitors would have an unfair advantage allowing them to replicate ByteDance’s potential business plans and circumvent the time and resources necessary to develop their own practices and strategies,” it said. Meta’s proposed redactions are “narrowly tailored to the specific portions of the list that reflect ByteDance’s highly confidential information” and therefore don’t unnecessarily limit the public’s general right to inspect public records, it said.