SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) – The woman suing Twitter over the sale of her information should have known that it would happen, the company is claiming.
Twitter took aim on Aug. 15 at Lauren Price’s class action lawsuit, filing a motion to dismiss that says she knew what she was signing up for when she submitted her contact information.
“Her only allegation is that Twitter provided ads by matching contact information that she voluntarily provided to Twitter with the same contact information that third-party advertisers were already using for marketing purposes,” the motion says. “…Twitter expressly disclosed in its Privacy Policy that contact information would be used for both security and for advertising.”
The lawsuit, filed May 31 in California federal court, came nine days after Twitter reached a settlement of allegations it peddled phone numbers and email addresses to advertisers with the Federal Trade Commission worth $150 million. Price is represented by Morgan & Morgan Complex Litigation Group.
Though the phone numbers and email addresses were collected "under the guise" they would be used for security-related reasons, Twitter instead used them to allow advertisers to target specific groups of users, the suit says.
"Twitter's relationship with its users is governed by the Twitter Terms of Service and the Twitter Privacy Policy," the suit says. "The Twitter Privacy Policy repeatedly promises Plaintiff and Class members that Twitter respects their information and discloses such information only with users' consent."
Twitter, though, says it was a mistake that it voluntarily corrected, and the FTC waited more than two years to file its lawsuit. It says the new class action largely mirrors the FTC suit.
However, Twitter argues, Price can’t point to an actual injury that would give her standing to pursue the lawsuit.
“The only concrete result of that alleged conduct is that Plaintiff may have viewed more relevant advertisements (if she did not opt out of interest-based advertising), because she had also provided her contact information to a third-party advertiser for advertising purposes,” the motion says.
“Plaintiff does not even try to suggest that receiving an interest-based ad from Twitter is itself an injury. Indeed, Plaintiff fails to allege that any interest-based ad she received is traceable to information she provided Twitter only through a security feature, rather than through the account creation process or at another time.”