The Federal Trade Commission fined Twitter $150 million for
privacy violations earlier this year in connection with its finding
that Twitter "inadvertently" allowed marketers to target
advertisements using user contact information. The information at
issue was collected for account security/authentication purposes,
and the FTC says that using it for a different use was a violation
of Twitter's privacy policy.
Now, a class plaintiff has filed suit on the basis of these same
facts, arguing that she is entitled to recover damages for
Twitter's use of her contact information for advertising rather
than just security purposes. In an interesting twist, Twitter has
said in its defense that it never said
it wouldn't use the security information
for advertising purposes.
