Twitter 'Unintentionally' Used Some Customer Data Provided for Account Security for Advertising Purposes
Twitter's support account today announced that Twitter used some customer email addresses and phone numbers that were provided for account security for advertising purposes, which Twitter says was done "unintentionally."
More specifically, email addresses and phone numbers were used in Twitter's Tailored Audiences and Partner Audiences advertising systems. Tailored Audiences is a feature that's designed to let advertisers target ads to customers based on the advertiser's marketing lists, while Partner Audiences is similar.
According to Twitter, when an advertiser uploaded a marketing list, it "may have matched" people on Twitter to their list based on the email or phone number the Twitter account holder provided for security purposes.
Twitter says that it "cannot say with certainty" how many people were affected, and the company has issued an apology. "We're very sorry this happened and are taking steps to make sure we don't make a mistake like this again," reads
a help document.
Personal data was not provided externally with partners or other third parties, and as of September 17, the issue has been fixed and phone numbers and email addresses collected for account security are no longer being used for advertising.
Popular Stories
Apple will adopt the same rear chassis manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 that it is using for the upcoming standard iPhone 16, claims a new rumor coming out of China. According to the Weibo-based leaker "Fixed Focus Digital," the backplate manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 is "exactly the same" as the standard model in Apple's upcoming iPhone 16 lineup, which is expected to...
Key details about the overall specifications of the iPhone 17 lineup have been shared by the leaker known as "Ice Universe," clarifying several important aspects of next year's devices. Reports in recent months have converged in agreement that Apple will discontinue the "Plus" iPhone model in 2025 while introducing an all-new iPhone 17 "Slim" model as an even more high-end option sitting...
Apple typically releases its new iPhone series around mid-September, which means we are about two months out from the launch of the iPhone 16. Like the iPhone 15 series, this year's lineup is expected to stick with four models – iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max – although there are plenty of design differences and new features to take into account. To bring ...
Apple is scaling back its Hollywood spending after investing over $20 billion in original programming with limited success, Bloomberg reports. This shift comes after the streaming service, which launched in 2019, struggled to capture a significant share of the market, accounting for only 0.2% of TV viewership in the U.S., compared to Netflix's 8%. Despite heavy investment, critical acclaim,...
Last Friday, a major CrowdStrike outage impacted PCs running Microsoft Windows, causing worldwide issues affecting airlines, retailers, banks, hospitals, rail networks, and more. Computers were stuck in continuous recovery loops, rendering them unusable. The failure was caused by an update to the CrowdStrike Falcon antivirus software that auto-installed on Windows 10 PCs, but Mac and Linux...