Twitter Inc. has agreed to pay $150 million to settle allegations of misusing the personal information of Twitter users. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), issued a report on Wednesday, stating that Twitter violated the FTC settlement made in 2011, in which it said: ” it would not use account information gathered for security purposes for ‘ad targeting”.
Twitter encouraged users to provide their telephone numbers or email addresses for security and protection purposes, such as to enable multi-factor authentication”. However, behind the curtains, Twitter uses this private data to serve targeted ads that provide Twitter with billions of dollars.
The world’s richest man Elon Musk, who is still negotiating the $44 billion deal for the acquisition of the social media company, has criticized its ads-driven business model in his recent tweet today: ”If Twitter was not truthful here, what else is not true? This is very concerning news”.
Damien Kieran, Twitter’s chief privacy officer, admitted in a Twitter post on Wednesday that personal information “may have been inadvertently used for advertising.”
As reported by the Federal Trade Commission, this is not the first time Twitter has been accused of violating privacy. The case started with the FTC’s 2010 complaint against Twitter stating ”The 2010 complaint cited multiple instances in which Twitter’s actions – and inactions – led to unauthorized access of users’ personal information.” and Twitter agreed to the 2011 order to settle that case.
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