30. May 2022
Twitter has been fined $150 million by U.S. authorities after the company collected users’ email addresses and phone numbers for security reasons and then used the data for targeted advertising.
According to a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, the social media platform had told users that the information would be used to keep their accounts secure. “While Twitter represented to users that it collected their telephone numbers and email addresses to secure their accounts, Twitter failed to disclose that it also used user contact information to aid advertisers in reaching their preferred audiences,” said a court complaint filed by the DoJ.
A stated in the court documents, the breaches occurred between May 2013 and September 2019, and the information was apparently used for purposes such as two-factor authentication. However, in addition to the above-mentioned purposes, Twitter used that data to allow advertisers to target specific groups of users by matching phone numbers and email addresses with advertisers’ own lists.
In addition to financial compensation, the settlement requires Twitter to improve its compliance practices. According to the complaint, the false disclosures violated FTC law and a 2011 settlement with the agency.
Twitter’s chief privacy officer, Damien Kieran, said in a statement that the company has “cooperated with the FTC at every step of the way.”
“In reaching this settlement, we have paid a $150m penalty, and we have aligned with the agency on operational updates and program enhancements to ensure that people’s personal data remains secure, and their privacy protected,” he added.
Twitter generates 90 percent of its $5 billion (£3.8 billion) in annual revenue from advertising.
The complaint also alleges that Twitter falsely claimed to comply with EU and U.S. privacy laws, as well as Swiss and U.S. privacy laws, which prohibit companies from using data in ways that consumers have not approved of.
The settlement with Twitter follows years of controversy over tech companies’ privacy practices. Revelations in 2018 that Facebook, the world’s largest social network, used phone numbers provided for two-factor authentication for advertising purposes enraged privacy advocates. Facebook, now Meta, also settled the matter with the FTC as part of a $5 billion settlement in 2019.
15. July 2019
According to a report of the Washington Post the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has approved a $ 5 billion (approx. € 4,4 billion) settlement with Facebook. The settlement was reached between the FTC and Facebook due to various Data Protection incidents, in particular the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The settlement relies on a three to two vote – the FTC’s three republicans supported the fine the two democrats were against it- and terminates the procedure for investigating Facebook’s privacy violations against users’ personal information. The fine of $ 5 billion is the highest fine ever assessed against a tech company, but even if it sounds like a very high fine, it only corresponds to the amount of the monthly turnover and is therefore not very high in relative terms. So far, the highest fine was $ 22,5 million for Google in 2012.
The decision of the FTC needs to be approved by the Justice Department. As a rule, however, this is a formality.
This is not the first fine Facebook has to accept in connection with various data protection incidents and certainly not the last. Investigations against Facebook are still ongoing in Spain as well as in Germany. In addition, Facebook has been criticized for quite some time for privacy incidents.
28. December 2018
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) is urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to work towards a national privacy legislation and prevent fragmentation of the U.S. privacy landscape.
In its plea, the ANA specifically raises concerns about current developments regarding the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). It deems both legislations to be overly restrictive and threatening to the free flow of information that “is vital to delivering the products and services that consumers value and expect” and asks the FTC to carry out a detailed review of the effects of the GDPR and the CCPA on competition and consumers.
The ANA is worried as “other states are considering additional and potentially inconsistent privacy and data security laws” and has been working with member companies and other industry groups to develop a new privacy paradigm that would be enforced by the FTC as a single national standard.
The approach involves allowing companies to use data considered “per se reasonable,” and prohibiting uses of data deemed “per se unreasonable.”
The reasonable practices “could include the collection and use of non-sensitive data for advertising purposes with consumer transparency and choice,” the ANA writes. Unreasonable ones “could include determining adverse terms or conditions or ineligibility for an individual’s: employment; credit; health care treatment; insurance; education and financial aid”.
The comments were filed in response to a request for input on the February 2019 FTC Hearing on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century, which will focus on consumer privacy.
