- Short message service Twitter has paid $150 million in a settlement with US law enforcement agencies.
- The government accused Twitter of not explicitly using the email addresses and telephone numbers of its users for its own advertising platform.
- According to the US judiciary, the information was used to activate accounts – i.e. to be able to verify people if a password is forgotten or lost.
Twitter not only used this data to unlock accounts, but also to display personalized advertising. This is the allegation of the US law enforcement agencies. Twitter is now averting the court case by paying $150 million.
Between May 2013 and September 2019, more than 140 million users shared their phone numbers or email addresses with Twitter, the US government said. She saw the service’s approach as a violation of an agreement from 2011, in which Twitter had committed itself to transparency in data protection, among other things.
Facebook paid significantly more in 2019
The service was therefore considered a repeat offender by the government, which opened the door for a hefty payment. With 150 million dollars (around 144.3 million Swiss francs), however, Twitter comes off much cheaper than Facebook. In 2019, US authorities also accused the world’s largest online network of violating previous data protection obligations.
Facebook paid five billion dollars and agreed to stricter data protection supervision. Among other things, Twitter must now have data protection checked by experts appointed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and report incidents to the authority within 30 days. In addition, Twitter is to offer a method for secure registration that works without a telephone number.