Twitter has been facing a lot of issues lately, and not all of them have to do with a certain billionaire whose name rhymes with husk. The social media platform has also been in the midst of an active lawsuit, and with all of that having been said and now out of the way it is important to note that they just settled this lawsuit to the tune of $150 million dollars after admitting that it violated user privacy and used phone numbers for targeted ads.
Numerous social media platforms implemented two factor authentication some time ago, and Twitter was no different. However, one thing that set Twitter apart was that it ended up using the phone numbers and email addresses that users gave them to start targeting them with ads. This occurred during a six year period between 2013 and 2019 with all things having been considered and taken into account.
Twitter claims that this data was sent into marketing funnels by accident, but in spite of the fact that this is the case it seems strange that a social media company would do something that benefits it so greatly by random chance. The social media platform might actually be grateful for settling for $150 million because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making it better off than Facebook who had to pay a massive $5 billion around the time when this scandal and lawsuit first emerged.
The Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission agreed that this was an appropriate fine given the violations, and it has also mandated that Twitter allow third parties to audit its privacy program. This marks the latest in a series of heavy fines that have been levied against major tech companies, but the continued prominence of privacy violations indicates that they might not be having the desired effect. Many tech companies may even just look at this as a cost of doing business, in which case fines are not going to help reduce their tendency to treat their users privacy with such a laissez faire approach.
Read next: More Chaos Surrounding Twitter As Shareholders Sue Elon Musk And The Company Over Poor Handling Of Acquisition Deal
Numerous social media platforms implemented two factor authentication some time ago, and Twitter was no different. However, one thing that set Twitter apart was that it ended up using the phone numbers and email addresses that users gave them to start targeting them with ads. This occurred during a six year period between 2013 and 2019 with all things having been considered and taken into account.
Twitter claims that this data was sent into marketing funnels by accident, but in spite of the fact that this is the case it seems strange that a social media company would do something that benefits it so greatly by random chance. The social media platform might actually be grateful for settling for $150 million because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making it better off than Facebook who had to pay a massive $5 billion around the time when this scandal and lawsuit first emerged.
The Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission agreed that this was an appropriate fine given the violations, and it has also mandated that Twitter allow third parties to audit its privacy program. This marks the latest in a series of heavy fines that have been levied against major tech companies, but the continued prominence of privacy violations indicates that they might not be having the desired effect. Many tech companies may even just look at this as a cost of doing business, in which case fines are not going to help reduce their tendency to treat their users privacy with such a laissez faire approach.
Read next: More Chaos Surrounding Twitter As Shareholders Sue Elon Musk And The Company Over Poor Handling Of Acquisition Deal
