Twitter Secretly Uses Phone Numbers, Email Addresses for Ad Targeting, Class Action Says

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Twitter faces a proposed class action lawsuit over its allegedly “surreptitious and undisclosed” use of consumers’ telephone numbers and email addresses for marketing purposes. 

The 25-page complaint alleges Twitter solicited and then collected users’ phone numbers and email addresses, ostensibly for account security-related functions such as two-factor authentication, account recovery and account re-authentication. 

In reality, the platform used this data to “line its own pockets,” specifically by including users’ phone numbers and email addresses in its “tailored audiences” and “partner audiences” marketing products, both of which permit advertisers to target specific users, the suit claims. 

Per the case, Twitter primarily allows companies to advertise on its platform via promoted tweets, promoted accounts and promoted trends. Through its “tailored audiences” product, Twitter allows an advertiser to target specific users by matching lists of telephone numbers and email addresses that the platform collects with the advertiser’s own existing list of numbers and addresses, the suit says. Likewise, Twitter’s “partner audiences” product allows an advertiser to import marketing lists from data brokers to match against phone numbers and email addresses collected by the platform, the filing relays. 

Importantly, a 2011 Federal Trade Commission order barred Twitter from expressly or implicitly misrepresenting the extent to which it maintains and protects the security, privacy, confidentiality and integrity of non-public consumer information. The order came after the FTC charged Twitter that year with deceptively failing to provide reasonable security measures to prevent unauthorized access to non-public user information and to honor user privacy choices, among other allegations. 

The lawsuit alleges, however, that Twitter, from at least May 2013 through at least September 2019, misrepresented to users the extent to which it maintained and protected the security and privacy of their personal information. Specifically, although Twitter represented that it collected phone numbers and email addresses to secure user accounts, it failed to disclose that the information would also be used to aid advertisers in hitting their target audiences, the filing charges. 

According to the case, Twitter’s “deceptive information collection techniques and misrepresentations” have allowed the company to unjustly profit “at the cost of consumer choice” as to how their data is used and whether it is monetized. 

Earlier this year, Twitter agreed to pay the FTC $150 million to settle allegations that it pulled a kind of “digital bait-and-switch” on users by asking for their personal information for ostensible account-security purposes and then using that data to serve targeted ads. In addition to the monetary penalty, the settlement prohibited Twitter from using the phone numbers and email addresses it “illegally collected” to serve ads, and mandated that the company notify users about its improper use of the contact information. Twitter must also provide multi-factor authentication options that don’t require a phone number, the FTC press release says. 

The lawsuit looks to cover all U.S. residents who, between May 2013 and September 2019, provided their phone number and/or email address to Twitter for the purposes of two-factor authentication, account recovery and/or account re-authentication. 

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