FTC Penalizes Twitter $150 Million for Deceptive Targeted Advertising Tactics
May 25 2022 - 6:36PM
Dow Jones News
By Denny Jacob
The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday that Twitter Inc.
must pay a $150 million penalty for deceptively using account
security data for targeted advertising.
Twitter asked users to give their phone numbers and email
addresses to protect their accounts and then profited by allowing
advertisers to use this data to target specific users, the FTC
said. The agency said Twitter's tactics violated a 2011 order that
explicitly prohibited the company from misrepresenting its privacy
and security practices.
More than 140 million Twitter users provided their phone numbers
or email addresses from 2014 to 2019, according to a complaint
filed by the Department of Justice on behalf of the FTC. Twitter
failed to mention that the information would also be used for
targeted advertising, the FTC alleged.
In addition to the $150 million penalty, Twitter is banned from
profiting from its deceptively collected data, the FTC said. Other
provisions of the proposed order include notifying users that it
misused phone numbers and email addresses, and allowing users to
use other multi-factor authentication methods.
The news is the latest development surrounding the social media
platform, which has been in the public eye since Elon Musk's $44
billion deal to acquire Twitter.
Write to Denny Jacob at denny.jacob@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 25, 2022 18:21 ET (22:21 GMT)
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