Twitter Faces FTC Probe, Likely Fine Over Use of Phone Numbers For Ads (arstechnica.com) 23
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Twitter is facing a Federal Trade Commission probe and believes it will likely owe a fine of up to $250 million after being caught using phone numbers intended for two-factor authentication for advertising purposes. The company received a draft complaint from the FTC on July 28, it disclosed in its regular quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange commission. The complaint alleges that Twitter is in violation of its 2011 settlement with the FTC over the company's "failure to safeguard personal information."
That agreement included a provision banning Twitter from "misleading consumers about the extent to which it protects the security, privacy, and confidentiality of nonpublic consumer information, including the measures it takes to prevent unauthorized access to nonpublic information and honor the privacy choices made by consumers." In October 2019, however, Twitter admitted that phone numbers and email addresses users provided it with for the purpose of securing their accounts were also used "inadvertently" for advertising purposes between 2013 and 2019. In the filing, Twitter estimates the "range of probable loss" it faces in the probe is between $150 million and $250 million, although it adds that "the matter remains unresolved, and there can be no assurance as to the timing or the terms of any final outcome."
That agreement included a provision banning Twitter from "misleading consumers about the extent to which it protects the security, privacy, and confidentiality of nonpublic consumer information, including the measures it takes to prevent unauthorized access to nonpublic information and honor the privacy choices made by consumers." In October 2019, however, Twitter admitted that phone numbers and email addresses users provided it with for the purpose of securing their accounts were also used "inadvertently" for advertising purposes between 2013 and 2019. In the filing, Twitter estimates the "range of probable loss" it faces in the probe is between $150 million and $250 million, although it adds that "the matter remains unresolved, and there can be no assurance as to the timing or the terms of any final outcome."
Don't use your real number (Score:3)
Buy a prepaid card or get an empty one, for registration purposes it's enough, then you can put it away and put your real one back in.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Buy a prepaid card or get an empty one, for registration purposes it's enough, then you can put it away and put your real one back in.
It said it was for 2 factor. You're probably going to need to keep that one around.
Re: (Score:3)
Hell no. Harass the fuck out of local politicians until they make the shite totally illegal and start handing out jail time. Fuck those privacy invasive and abusive cunts, it's about time those shit heads, started going to jail. Where and when is the privacy invasive targeted psychological manipulations shite going to stop, well, it is quite clear, not until we force politicians to legislate to stop it. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!
Re: (Score:3)
Or better, don't use its 2FA's phone SMS method.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a choice? I had a twitter account after twitter let someone use MY email address to sign-up.
Then they decided that to log in I needed to verify my account by supplying a phone number for verification. Goodbye twitter.
Re: (Score:2)
If only there was a way for Twitter to know that it wasn't you using your email address to sign up...
Re: (Score:2)
For quite a while there wasn't. They simply handed out accounts with no verification at all. My work email addresses were hit by that way back in 2010.
Twitter Faces FTC Probe (Score:1)
What happened? They tag another one of the president's posts? Or deleted a bunch of his followers?
slap on the wrist with a wet noodle (Score:1)
Check you cost of a DUI, it can reach 1/10 of your yearly income and then never goes away, 3 time and your license is gone.
So why not the same for these corporations?
1/10 of the their worth for something like this. First time.
Next time 2/15 of current worth.
The time is far less than the crime and they just laugh all the way to the bank.
Give them something to remember and change their way.
Some like
Re: (Score:2)
It turns out you're not one of the people they had in mind, sorry.
If you just had more money they might listen.
Oooooh, an FTC fine (Score:2)
Inadevertently!!! (Score:2)
LinkedIn, TickTok inadvertently was copying my clipboard which contained passwords when I was copy/pasting.
Twitter inadvertently was using emai and phone.
I make lots of inadvertent errors in my code. Looks like I am in great demand.
This Sounds Familiar (Score:3, Informative)
So that I could download the Nvidia settings app, which is now delivered exclusively through the Microsoft store, I created a ‘Microsoft Account’. It’s touching to see tech giants work together to screw over customers. I bought the GPU 8 months ago, but have downloaded my last drivers unless I created an MS account that I didn’t want.
Oh well, at least all of the big companies value diversity and inclusion. They would draw the line at honesty. They don’t even pretend to value that one.
So anyway, I downloaded the app, and that was the last and only thing i did with my "Microsoft Account". I did zero else. This was about a month ago.
Three days later I received an email from Microsoft. It said that they had locked my account due to acivity that potentially violated their Terms of Service. If I provided them with my phone number, they said, they would restore access and unlock my account at once.
I thought about it, but could not figure out how providing my phone number to Microsoft would cure whatever dastardly thing i had supposedly done. How would it address it in any way? Futhermore, since they didn't even give me a hint as to what this activity was, how on esrth would I avoid it in the future? Does surfing midget porn, I mean, doing my taxes so that I can pay my fair share of corporate bailouts, on my own computer, now violate Microsoft's TOS? Since I didn’t interact with the Microsoft Account, do they watch what you do locally on your own machine?
Regardless, there was no "TOS violating” activity.
Thinking I could resolve this without giving up my privacy, I tried to unlock the account used a secondary Google Voice number.
The result?
“We cannot use this number, please provide us [yet another] number.”
Gee, that’s odd . everyone else can call and text it. I would be willing to bet hard currency they kept the initial one too. The entire thing seemed so incredibly desperate.
This was a month ago. Email, calendar, purchasing, etc. all locked. If I actuslly used the account, they'd really have me by the short and curlies. I can only imagine how many phone numbers they've collected like this. Note that they don't require a phone number to create an account, that night dissuede people from making one, so they do this isntead. I'd consider extortion on some level. If nothign else, it's just plain dishonest.
For the American consumer, fraud is the new norm in 2020. Or maybe it always was, it just takes longer for some of us to realize it.
My account remains locked to this day.
Re: (Score:2)
I've never had any problem downloading nvidia drivers direct from nvidia.
But anyway, this is similar to what twitter did to me, they claim account rules were violated (might have been) and they need my phone number to verify me. But I don't give my phone number out without good reason and twitter is not a good reason in my book.
Re: (Score:2)
You can still download the NVIDIA settings app (and the Intel settings app) from the Microsoft Store without creating an account. It asked me if I wanted to create an account so my apps would sync across machines or some shit, but I just closed the prompt. It still installed fine. The weird thing is that the NVIDIA settings app is only an 8kB download from the store. It's got to just be a wrapper for something in the driver package. So why does MS force them to deliver this wrapper through the store?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The drivers for both Intel and NVIDIA GPUs are still distributed via their own web sites, Windows Update, Dell Command|Update, an other channels. However, Microsoft forced a change in packaging so they can no longer include the control panels in the "driver" packages and need to deploy them through the Store. Intel seems to have completely removed the control panel from the "driver" package, but NVIDIA seems to have come up with a workaround allowing the actual control panel to be in the "driver" package
Re: (Score:2)
Say it ain't so! (Score:2)
You mean to tell me that a company which bans users for making misleading claims itself made a false statement?
Imagine if ISP's cancelled twitter for making "false and misleading claims" to their customers.