Twitter to Pay $150 Million to US to Settle Privacy Allegations: Report

Twitter has agreed to pay $150 million (roughly Rs. 1,164 crore) to settle allegations it misused non-public info, like cellphone numbers, to focus on promoting after telling customers the data can be used for safety causes, based on court docket paperwork filed on Wednesday.

Twitter’s settlement covers allegations that it misrepresented the “security and privacy” of person knowledge between May 2013 and September 2019, based on the court docket paperwork.

The firm pays $150 million as a part of the settlement introduced by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In addition to the financial settlement, the settlement requires Twitter to enhance its compliance practices.

The criticism mentioned that the misrepresentations violated the FTC Act and a 2011 settlement with the company.

“Specifically, while Twitter represented to users that it collected their telephone numbers and email addresses to secure their accounts, Twitter failed to disclose that it also used user contact information to aid advertisers in reaching their preferred audiences,” the criticism mentioned.

Twitter’s chief privateness officer, Damien Kieran, mentioned in a press release that with the settlement “we have aligned with the agency on operational updates and program enhancements” to guard person privateness and safety.

Twitter is a free service that makes cash primarily by means of promoting. Billionaire Elon Musk, who’s shopping for the service for $44 billion(roughly Rs. 3,41,300 crore), has criticised its ads-driven enterprise mannequin and pledged to diversify its income sources.

“If Twitter was not truthful here, what else is not true? This is very concerning news,” Musk mentioned in a tweet late on Wednesday, commenting on the social media firm’s advert practices and the effective.

The US officers identified that of the $3.4 billion (roughly Rs. 26,389 crore) in income that Twitter earned in 2019, about $3 billion (roughly Rs. 23,284 crore) was from promoting.

The firm made $5 billion (roughly Rs. 38,806 crore) in income for 2021. It mentioned in a submitting earlier this month that it had put apart $150 million after agreeing “in principle” upon a penalty with the FTC.

“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,” mentioned FTC Chair Lina Khan in a press release. “This practice affected more than 140 million Twitter users, while boosting Twitter’s primary source of revenue.”

The criticism additionally alleges that Twitter falsely mentioned it complied with the European Union-US and Swiss-US Privacy Shield Frameworks, which bar corporations from utilizing knowledge in ways in which shoppers don’t authorise.

Twitter’s settlement follows years of fallout over the privateness practices of tech corporations.

Revelations in 2018 that Facebook, the world’s largest social community, was utilizing cellphone numbers supplied for two-factor authentication to serve advertisements enraged privateness advocates.

Facebook, now referred to as Meta, equally settled with the FTC over the difficulty as a part of a $5 billion settlement reached in 2019.

© Thomson Reuters 2022