The Indiana Court of Appeals says the State of Indiana has jurisdiction over TikTok.

With a unanimous opinion by a three-judge panel, the court reinstates a pair of Allen County cases brought by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita against the popular social media app.

In a pair of lawsuits filed in Allen County Superior Court in 2022, Rokita argued that the app exposed children to inappropriate content and did not adequately inform users that their personal information could be exposed to the Chinese government.

Rokita says those actions by TikTok and its parent company ByteDance violated Indiana’s Deceptive Consumer Sales Act.

Appellate Court Judge Paul Mathias says the company made more than $46 million in Indiana in 2021 and has users in the state.

The state had argued that ByteDance was doing business in Indiana, even though the app is free to download and free to use.

The appellate court agreed.

"We agree with the State that DCSA’s statutory definition of a consumer transaction does not include the words 'exchange for money.' There is no question that any of the described dispositions in the statutory definition can be, and we presume most often are, effectuated by way of an exchange for money, but the statutory language does not require such an exchange," Mathias wrote in the ruling.

Mathias writes that in sending the cases back to the Allen County Superior Court, the Court of Appeals is merely saying the state has a legal right to challenge the company’s actions.

Mathias writes the Court of Appeals is not making a decision on the evidence of those original cases.

A spokesperson for the attorney general says that the state is looking forward to continuing its fight against the company.