Social media giant Twitter has been asked to pay a penalty of $150 million by the federal trade commission for failing to protect its user data over a 6-year span. The Financial implication will be redeemed by FTC and the Justice Department on a joint note.
According to the order, Twitter which is soon going into the hands of Tesla Chief Elon Musk failed to protect its user info between 2013 to 2019 and was giving false security that it has all measures in place to protect the information that is not for public view.
Going deep into the details, Twitter started collecting phone numbers and email addresses of its users in the name of securing the accounts. But failed completely in protecting the data from hackers.
Moreover, the FTC presented evidence in the court that the company started selling that data to marketing companies who paid millions for such data.
It was a clear-cut breach of privacy agreements according to the United States, European Union, and Switzerland which object to selling user data to marketing firms.
Currently, the $150m penalty and the new compliance measures are being reviewed by the court of California and will be reviewed as per the FTC’s 2011 order that alleged Twitter for showing security laxity in protecting user data.
NOTE- Hope, Twitter keeps its word and implements significant compliance standards to improve the data privacy of its users.
