Twitter agrees to pay $150M settlement over selling user data for targeted ads

• Twitter will notify all U.S. customers who joined it before September 17, 2019

Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) has agreed to pay settlement charges worth $150 million after the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission accused the social media company of misrepresenting its data privacy practices by collecting and selling users' personal data to advertisers over six years.

The $150 million fine represents about 3% of Twitter’s 2021 revenue of $5.08 billion.

The complaint alleged that between the period from May 2013 to September 2019, Twitter told its users that it was collecting their telephone numbers and email addresses for account-security purposes.