Twitter pays a $150-million penalty and put in new safeguards to settle federal regulators’ allegations that the social platform failed to guard the privateness of customers’ knowledge over a six-year span.
The Justice Division and the Federal Commerce Fee introduced the settlement with Twitter on Wednesday. The regulators allege Twitter violated a 2011 FTC order by deceiving customers about how properly it maintained and guarded the privateness and safety of their nonpublic contact data.
From Might 2013 to September 2019, Twitter advised customers that it was gathering their cellphone numbers and electronic mail addresses for functions of account safety. However it did not disclose that it additionally would use the data to allow firms to ship focused on-line adverts to customers on the platform, the federal government alleged.
The regulators additionally alleged, in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, that Twitter falsely claimed that it complied with U.S. privateness agreements with the European Union and Switzerland, which prohibit firms from processing consumer data in methods which are at odds with functions licensed by customers.
The $150-million penalty and the required new compliance measures beneath the settlement have to be accredited by a federal court docket in California.
The FTC’s 2011 order had alleged critical lapses in Twitter’s knowledge safety that allowed hackers to achieve unauthorized administrative management of Twitter, together with entry to nonpublic consumer data.
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