Twitter agrees to pay a $150M fine for deceptive ad targeting

By James Farrell for SiliconANGLE
Thursday, May 26, 2022

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Twitter Inc. settled a lawsuit today with the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, paying a fine that set the social media giant back $150 million.

Ilia Kolochenko, founder of ImmuniWeb and a member of Europol Data Protection Experts Network, told SiliconANGLE that the relatively small size of the fine shouldn’t be seen as just a slap on the wrist.

“This settlement is an unambiguous and expressive message that the FTC has been and will continue regulating privacy in the U.S. amid the fragmented state privacy legislation and missing federal privacy law,” he said. “It will be interesting to see whether privacy-sensitive European regulators, pursuing their harsh enforcement policy, will commence a new probe on Twitter over the possibly previously unknown facts exposed by this settlement. In the EU, the fine may be significantly higher.”

This has been a tumultuous time for Twitter, with Elon Musk’s proposed $44 billion acquisition taking many turns. Just today, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey said he’s stepping down from the board, while stating that the sometimes controversial Musk and his promise of more free speech on the platform is a step in the right direction. “This is the right path,” said Dorsey. “I believe it with all my heart.” Read Full Article