Twitter was fined $150 million by federal regulators Wednesday for misleading its users about the company’s use of their personal data.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, Twitter collected email addresses and phone numbers of users from May 2013 through September 2019. It claimed it needed this information to protect their accounts. The agency stated that the blog service also provided this data to advertisers in order to target specific individuals. This information was not disclosed. Advertisers can match users’ email addresses and phone numbers with data they have, or buy from data brokers to target specific people.
Lina Khan, FTC Chair, stated that Twitter obtained user data under the pretense of harnessing it for security but then used the data to target users using ads. This practice affected more than 140,000,000 Twitter users and boosted Twitter’s main source of revenue.
Federal regulators filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging that Twitter falsely claimed it had complied with U.S. privacy arrangements with the European Union, Switzerland and other countries. These agreements prohibit companies from using user data for purposes that are not authorized by users.
The FTC announced that Twitter would pay $150 million to settle deceptive advertising charges and will also change its services so users have more options for verifying their accounts.
The fine amounts to about 3% of Twitter’s annual revenue. Twitter was notified Wednesday by the Justice Department and FTC of the agreement.
This is not the first time that regulators have accused Twitter for being deceptive about how it used data. After two data breaches, which the FTC claimed were caused by Twitter’s insecure security, the FTC banned Twitter from misleading consumers about its security for twenty years. According to the Justice Department and FTC, Twitter’s most recent conduct is a violation of the 2011 order.
This report was contributed by the Associated Press.