Washington, Nov 13(UNI) The US Commerce Department announced that it has halted a ban on TikTok that was due to come into effect on Thursday night.

If the ban had gone through people in the US would no longer be able to download the app on their mobile phones.

The Commerce Department said it has delayed banning TikTok "pending further legal developments," citing a Philadelphia court ruling from September where three prominent TikTokers had argued that the app should be allowed to operate in America.

This decision will come as a big relief to the estimated 100 million TikTok users in the United States.

In September, TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance had announced a deal with Walmart and Oracle to shift TikTok's US assets into a new entity called TikTok Global.

Donald Trump tentatively supported the deal and had said that he wants TikTok to be sold to a US company. However on Tuesday TikTok said it had had no feedback from the US government in two months.

Both Trump, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have alleged TikTok is a national security threat because it can easily pass personal data of American users on to the Chinese government, even though no evidence has been presented showing this and TikTok has denied these allegations.

UNI XC ACL0810