Twitter to pay $150 million for selling users data for Ads

[Cookdata]

In court documents made public on Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice say Twitter violated a 2011 agreement with regulators in which the company vowed to not use information gathered for security purposes, like users' phone numbers and email addresses, to help advertisers target people with ads.

Federal investigators say Twitter broke that promise.

"As the complaint notes, 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 broke their promise about how they collected their user data (email and phone number), they violated the agreement^[1] that was presented in the paperwork with the authorities back in 2011, and they have been charged and fined $150 million for selling it for Ads.
Similar organizations have exploited data in business, and many of them have always denied it to the public, but after further digging and investigation, the lies become burst into the public.


Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/25/1101275323/twitter-privacy-settlement-doj-ftc


https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22038327-ftc-settlement-twitter

[NeuroticFish]

I've said it before: don't believe what the big companies say, just because they pinky swear it.

Greed is big. The investors want results, i.e. trucks of money.
Policies change over time and they may tell you or they may "forget" to tell you about that.

Users' data is a hugely valuable asset. And, believe it or not, the related legislation is so thin, we can say we're still in the times of wild west.

[mindrust]

These big corps all follow the same principle of Zuck's.

Do first, apologize later.

In this particular case, Twitter probably has made a lot more profits than the penalty amount ($150m) by selling their user data. So they can get away with it even after paying the fine and I am pretty sure they will come up with a creative way to avoid this penalty anyway.

Tiwtter, Facebook, Google these companies make their money from ads. They are ad companies. If you want to kill them fast, use an adblocker.

[Lucius]

When you fine a company that is supposedly worth over $40 billion with a fine of only $150 million, then it is not really a punishment but a public performance that wants to show how someone in a regulatory agency does their job. If someone really wants to change something, then the penalties must be far greater - otherwise this is nothing but a farce that will continue indefinitely.

I'm really interested in what the new T boss will do in this regard, especially when we know how much he paid for his new toy.

[Charles-Tim]

Twitter broke their promise about how they collected their user data (email and phone number), they violated the agreement^[1] that was presented in the paperwork with the authorities back in 2011, and they have been charged and fined $150 million for selling it for Ads.

Once you give out your data for KYC purpose, then it can be sold to third parties by the organization that you gave it to. Even if not sold, it can be given to third parties. Even if not freely given or sold to third parties, it can be hacked. To reman private, you should not give out you personal data, especially in crypto, to exchanges and other centralized services organizations.

[Uang_kartal]

it is a form of cheating and is an unpleasant act. Just imagine that personal data is private and cannot be transmitted for any reason. especially for commercial advertisements, indeed not everyone accepts services or offers of advertisements either on twitter itself or spam that enters cell phone contacts. we send data only for verification and TOS only. but if twitter users know the long tail of this data misappropriation, of course they will think they still have an account on one of these phenomenal social networks. but it might be a mistake that twitter.inc did unknowingly. let's fix what happened

[Jawhead999]

That's why having a social media account will risking your KYC,.I have an accounts before, but I decided to delete it all and only become a guest if I want to read any posts or news on there. I can't remember which personal information I had send in my social medias, but at least it's a lesson for me to not repeat it. Anyway did this news caused by Elon Musk after bought twitter?

[Upgrade00]

Once personal data is shared, it should be considered to no longer be personal, regardless of what the other party claims they wish to use it for.
Data is one of the biggest markets and social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Google and the rest have loads of it by collecting presumably harmless data to fulfil whatever sign up conditions they set. It has become so much of a norm now, users barely care what is collected and how it is used, or rather they fail to see any danger in their phone number, or web history being tracked and stored.

This is a trend that is not going to stop anytime soon, best to take precautions to protect yourself if you do not want your details shared.

[KingsDen]

Give me a gun, also load it with bullets I promise I will not release a shot. I only need the gun to protect you from enemies so that they will not attack you, neither will they get you when they attack said tweeter.

There's a sound outside and it's exactly like the sound of the gun used to protect me. I now asked, have enemies come? And they replied No, there's no enemies. We just wanted to test the gun and be sure it is working, so that when enemies will come, we will be confident that we can protect you.

Me: but you have violated the agreement that you will only shoot when enemies come.
Tweeter: We are very sorry.
Me: OK, give me the gun so that if enemies come, I will be able to protect myself.
Tweeter: No, you are not trained to handle gun, if given gun, you may shoot yourself 

[Captain Corporate]

The question is, did they made more money from this or not? If they made more money from this, that means that they are going to repeat and they do not mind, because in the end it was still profitable and Twitter is a company, they do not care about your user data or whatever, they care about making a profit just like every other company. However, if there is a good law that will keep them in check, like first time is 150 million but the second time is 15 billion or even worse, then maybe they will reconsider it next time. Or if they lost money on this from the get go, then they will definitely not want to do it at all.

[Renampun]

personal data is privacy but almost all big companies (especially social media) don't keep their promises...

A few years ago, Facebook was also on trial with a similar case (spreading/selling of customer's personal data). i don't know if this happened because of their new CEO because as far as i know jack dorsey is very hard on the privacy of its users.

[Fortify]

In court documents made public on Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice say Twitter violated a 2011 agreement with regulators in which the company vowed to not use information gathered for security purposes, like users' phone numbers and email addresses, to help advertisers target people with ads.

Federal investigators say Twitter broke that promise.

"As the complaint notes, 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 broke their promise about how they collected their user data (email and phone number), they violated the agreement^[1] that was presented in the paperwork with the authorities back in 2011, and they have been charged and fined $150 million for selling it for Ads.
Similar organizations have exploited data in business, and many of them have always denied it to the public, but after further digging and investigation, the lies become burst into the public.

Broke their promise? They broke the law and got caught. Frankly it shows that the regulators are always far behind the criminal activity taking places and it's probably by sheer luck that they got wind of this. Facebook went through similar things and you know what they most likely learned? How to hide the malicious activity they are doing even better, and besides that - the punishment is likely to cost them tiny amounts compared to the money they can potentially earn from abusing data in these ways. $150 million sounds like a big number to us, but it's pittance to this multibillion dollar company and comes under the "cost of business" category in some accounting line. The regulators need to be more proactive instead of reactive if they want applause.

[Gyfts]

People upset at Twitter should also look towards facebook and particularly google for manipulating user search results along the political leanings of executives that run the company, who on top will take user data and sell it to the highest bidder. When something is free, you are the product. If politicians weren't spineless they would regulate these large tech corporations, but they realize political campaigns become easier with big tech censoring the opposition.

[Lanatsa]

I've said it before: don't believe what the big companies say, just because they pinky swear it.

Greed is big. The investors want results, i.e. trucks of money.
Policies change over time and they may tell you or they may "forget" to tell you about that.

Users' data is a hugely valuable asset. And, believe it or not, the related legislation is so thin, we can say we're still in the times of wild west.

Comes to a point where it's not really that surprising anymore if we do talk about probabilities on having those user data would leaked or something that's been sold and is there something that we can do? Nothing!

Just like you've said that companies could easily make U-turn and would break out those promises that they do have in the past that's why it's better to prepare nor get used yourself into these stuffs considering for it to be that typical.

[crzy]

There’s still a lot of companies that sells are identity, this is why we are receiving emails/phone messages regarding something and its good that they finally have a proof with this one, so for sure people will be more aware about sharing their personal information and be careful next time. I wonder if banks also do the same thing? Maybe someone should initiate the investigation with them.

[n0ne]

This is already known, being centralized these corporate networks will go on selling user data when they feel greedy. Often we see these kind of issues, data collection and selling is a big profit of modern day economy. Every firm says that they don't sell our data to anyone. Based on different analytics, data is the key on each and every business. It is found that every user data on an average with health care records costs $250. In this situation surely these fellows fall for big money.

[CryptoPanda]

The companies they sold user data to should be fined as well. This will discourage others from the act but I'm afraid it has become a tool that's become necessary in today's market. Private companies pay good money for user data, it helps them know what to sell you and how to sell you. It's all geared towards advertising and selling their products. Google is the biggest offender of this crime, they spy on their users all the time.

[Yogee]

.... In this particular case, Twitter probably has made a lot more profits than the penalty amount ($150m) by selling their user data. So they can get away with it even after paying the fine and I am pretty sure they will come up with a creative way to avoid this penalty anyway.

It's what I was thinking too. This amount is just a slap in the wrist for these big platforms.

Where do these fines go by the way?

The companies they sold user data to should be fined as well. This will discourage others from the act but I'm afraid it has become a tool that's become necessary in today's market. Private companies pay good money for user data, it helps them know what to sell you and how to sell you. It's all geared towards advertising and selling their products. Google is the biggest offender of this crime, they spy on their users all the time.

First thing you have to look at is that are they prohibited from getting these kinds of information? Are they also prohibited from using it and selling their prpducts? Personal information are protected but I don't think it's treated the same way as buying illegal drugs.

[Wexnident]

Yeaa I don't think fines should be the only punishment for selling user data. Or if it was, then at least make it an amount where it could visibly damage the company so that they'd think twice before doing it again (or for other companies, doing it). Even if we do say that this is the usual practice that these big companies do, it doesn't make it an excuse for the law to let them do as such, especially if it wasn't an actual first instance for these big companies to do it.

Comes to a point where it's not really that surprising anymore if we do talk about probabilities on having those user data would leaked or something that's been sold and is there something that we can do? Nothing!

Don't use them. Or at least, don't give out any info you think could potentially lead to you. Use a throwaway email address, and a mobile number as well if possible.

[Strongkored]

The question is, did they made more money from this or not? If they made more money from this, that means that they are going to repeat and they do not mind, because in the end it was still profitable and Twitter is a company, they do not care about your user data or whatever, they care about making a profit just like every other company. However, if there is a good law that will keep them in check, like first time is 150 million but the second time is 15 billion or even worse, then maybe they will reconsider it next time. Or if they lost money on this from the get go, then they will definitely not want to do it at all.

Of course they make money because why risk their company's reputation if they can't get more money in this illegal way. Twitter has changed ownership but we know the new owners are people who are also money oriented and all entrepreneurs are like that and will they continue to look for ways to profit by using their user data.