Twitter fined for leaking private information to advertisers

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 28/05/2022

Twitter has been fined USD 150 million for giving personal information like phone numbers and email addresses to advertisers to be used for targeted ads, the US Feder Trade Commission says.  The FTC says Twitter has deceptively been using account security data for targeted advertising.

Users were asked to give their phone numbers and email addresses to protect their accounts. The firm then profited by allowing advertisers to use this data to target specific users, STC says adding that Twitter  must pay a USD 150 million penalty and is banned from profiting from its deceptively collected data.

“As the complaint notes, Twitter obtained data from users on the pretext of harnessing it for security purposes but then ended up also using the data to target users with ads,” said FTC Chair, Lina M. Khan, in a press release. “This practice affected more than 140 million Twitter users, while boosting Twitter’s primary source of revenue.”

“The Department of Justice is committed to protecting the privacy of consumers’ sensitive data,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta. “The USD 150 million penalty reflects the seriousness of the allegations against Twitter, and the substantial new compliance measures to be imposed as a result of today’s proposed settlement will help prevent further misleading tactics that threaten users’ privacy.”

“Consumers who share their private information have a right to know if that information is being used to help advertisers target customers,” said U.S. Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds for the Northern District of California. “Social media companies that are not honest with consumers about how their personal information is being used will be held accountable.”

STC says that from 2014 to 2019, more than 140 million Twitter users provided their phone numbers or email addresses after the company told them this information would help secure their accounts, according to the complaint.

“Twitter, however, failed to mention that it also would be used for targeted advertising, the FTC alleged. Twitter used the phone numbers and email addresses to allow advertisers to target specific ads to specific consumers by matching the information with data they already had or obtained from data brokers, according to the FTC complaint.”

“Twitter’s deceptive use of users’ phone numbers and email addresses for targeted advertising also violated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield agreements, which required participating companies to follow certain privacy principles in order to legally transfer data from EU countries and Switzerland.”