The Twitter user, stevenmarkryan claimed that, ‘he’s often asked to provide his birth date so it can make money selling targeted ads under the guise of wanting to ensure I don’t see inappropriate content.’
Illegal sale
Recently, Twitter has accepted to pay a $150 million fine after the company was accused of illegal sale of users’ personal data.
Over six years, the company continued this work.
This sale helped the targeted advertisement on twitter.
Later, On Wednesday the FTC & Department of justice say that Twitter broke 2011 agreement with regulators.
The company assured to not use users’ information which they held for security purposes.
But, Twitter broke the promise, says Federal investigators.
The complaint says,”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 Khan.
Twitter asks the users to give contact no. and email addresses which later helps to login and change password.
The Agreement:
However, until September 2019, Twitter was using the users information for boosting it’s ad business, by allowing access to users contact details.
“If you’re telling people you’re using their phone numbers to secure their accounts, and then you use them for other purposes, you’re deceiving them and breaking the law,” said Sam Levine, who leads the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
More than 140 million Twitter users provided their information to Twitter.
Twitter’s chief privacy officer, Damien Kieran, acknowledged to the news that users’ personal information’ may have been inadvertently used for advertising.’
Twitter is no longer continuing this business of selling users privacy information, assured Damien.
‘Keeping data secure and respecting privacy is something we take extremely seriously, and we have cooperated with the FTC every step of the way, Damien added.
The company made a settlement with the FTC which includes a $5 billion fine against Facebook in 2019.
In the agreement, the company committed to stop selling users personal details to advertiser’s.
The FTC deal says that the regulator and an independent monitor will have oversight on Twitter’s advertising actions for two decades.
Although Twitter is already on stake since Elon Musk announced his takeover on Twitter last month.
However, the $44 billion deal is temporarily on hold, announced by Musk.
He wants to discover how many fake and spam accounts are there on the site.
Likewise, corporate merger experts and Chief executive members say that the deal is on.
Musk is legally binding a contract with the company pending shareholder and regulatory review.
But still, the official announcement is awaited from Elon Musk.
