Twitter has been charged a large fine for not adhering to agreements set out with users around personal security and information.
FTC’s and DoJ’s take on Twitter ToS
In 2013 Twitter took the phone numbers or emails of users. These were used to serve ads this has led them to being fined as it was stated this was for security reasons. With the email/phone number Twitter went to information brokers and corroborated the information between the two to run targeted ads.
Compliance at Twitter
It has been stated that they must also improve its compliance practices. They now how to tell users their data was misused and profited from its deceptive collection. Alongside this they must also limited how much access employees have to personal data.
Having made $3 billion from advertising this is quite the blow to the companies practices as they will need to reform a system that is profitable. Using the users information deceptively they have enabled themselves to make record revenue from a non compliant form of data handling.
Not the only platform
Most social media companies are in court frequently around user privacy and regulations one part is that the legislation around this area isnt up to date and has loop holes. In 2018 Facebook used phone numbers from two-factor authentication to serve ads settling for $5 Billion in 2019 with the FTC. Google has been fined for breaking privacy laws being fined £44 million, alongside being fined £91m over ad-tracking cookies.
Last weeks article is available here.
