WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department asked a federal judge in San Francisco early on Friday to allow the government to bar Apple Inc AAPL.O and Alphabet Inc’s Google GOOGL.O from offering WeChat for download in U.S. app stores pending an appeal.
The filing asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler to put on hold her preliminary injunction issued Saturday. That injunction blocked the U.S. Commerce Department order which was set to take effect late on Sept. 20 and that would also bar other U.S. transactions with Tencent Holding’s 0700.HK WeChat, potentially making the app unusable in the United States.
The Justice Department filing said Beeler’s order was in error and “permits the continued, unfettered use of WeChat, a mobile application that the Executive Branch has determined constitutes a threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
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