FTC Fines Twitter $150 Million for Using Security Features for Targeted Advertising ⇥ ftc.gov

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission:

The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against Twitter, Inc. for deceptively using account security data for targeted advertising. Twitter asked users to give their phone numbers and email addresses to protect their accounts. The firm then profited by allowing advertisers to use this data to target specific users. Twitter’s deception violates a 2011 FTC order that explicitly prohibited the company from misrepresenting its privacy and security practices. Under the proposed order, Twitter must pay a $150 million penalty and is banned from profiting from its deceptively collected data.

This issue was disclosed by Twitter in 2019, the same year Facebook acknowledged doing basically the same thing.