Security News > 2022 > May > Twitter Fined $150 Million for Misusing Users' Data for Advertising Without Consent

Twitter, which is in the process of being acquired by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has agreed to pay $150 million to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to settle allegations that it abused non-public information collected for security purposes to serve targeted ads.

In addition to the monetary penalty for "Misrepresenting its privacy and security practices," the company has been banned from profiting from the deceptively collected data and ordered to notify all affected users.

"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," FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said in a statement.

"This practice affected more than 140 million Twitter users, while boosting Twitter's primary source of revenue."

According to a complaint filed by the U.S. Justice Department, Twitter in May 2013 began enforcing a requirement for users to provide either a phone number or email address to improve account security.

What Twitter failed to make transparent was that it also allowed advertisers to use this information to target specific ads by matching them with email addresses and phone numbers already obtained from other third-parties such as data brokers.

News URL

https://thehackernews.com/2022/05/twitter-fined-150-million-for-misusing.html