Twitter can sell your account information and your tweets and other information...

Yes, this is weird. I did a wikipedia search and found this:


"Privacy and security

Twitter collects personally identifiable information about its users and shares it with third parties. The service considers that information an asset, and reserves the right to sell it if the company changes hands.[42] While Twitter displays no advertising, advertisers can target users based on their history of tweets and sometimes may quote tweets in ads.[43]"

I also found more articles about this online. They basicly say that Twitter can sell any information you put on their site to anyone.

Could this be a breach of privacy. I mean I wounder if they can sell this information to the U.S government?

I didn't find anything the specifies who they usally sell this information too... I did see they state that it could be sold to marketeers or marketing firms.

I don't have a twitter account but I notice everyone in my area is going nuts about this.

Just the other day coming back from the doctors. I saw a chruch that had a led screen and says were on twitter.

I then saw some small shops saying they are on twitter. Now knowing that twitter can sell any information since they view it as their asset. Could this be a bad thing for small business owners?
And many other people. I am sure if you read the fine legal print when registering the account it will say that your information you provide to twitter servers will be their asset. You should see some sort of legal jargon that would state something similar but in legal wording.

I would like to hear what you think about twitter and about this? I am not trahsing it.

I just wikipedia it and found out about this. I then google serached about privacy and I got a buch of stuff. Even the wiki.

Here is one site talking about some guy that was upset that twitter allowed private tweets to public.. The twitter api for programmers can easily grap your private tweets with your friend with no problem. The blog is about some guy that made a website and used the twitter api and grabbed someones private tweets. So the guy gave him a nasty e-mail.

TO me I don't have twitter cause I don't see why eveyone is worked up about it?

I would love to hear what you think about this.

[edit on 21-7-2009 by computerwiz32]

[edit on 21-7-2009 by computerwiz32]

good read, thanks for the heads up....glad i don't have one but i will let people i know about this thanks.

reply to post by computerwiz32


This does not surprise me in the least, because it's what Facebook, and the majority of the other "idiot sites" do.

I call them "idiot sites" because you would have to be a complete idiot to put anything relevant on those sites, and not expect them to re-sell that information.

Information databases have been around for a very long time.

It starts innocently enough, with a Census, and that data is sold as well, and turns into a monster.

This is why I make sure the things I do online are controllable only by me.

IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

I read this book, and it made my blood boil that I.B.M. worked hand in hand with the Nazi's to utilized the Hollerith card sorting machine, an early version of the computer, using punch card, to find the location of all the Jews, through the Census, while around the same time America began the Census process.

Jews were marked with the yellow star of Israel, and tattooed, permanently (although permanent is relative to their life ending in an oven), with a number on their arm.

And, Americans were given a white card, with numbers written on it, the Social Security card, which was guaranteed by Congress to never become a "national identifying number", which was a crock of crap.

Information, is a commodity to these people, and a fair trade value is always placed upon it.

yep ,I agree with you most sites like facebook do such a thing.

Twitter I think is a danger. I mean most people use it. Even businesses. I even heard the ceo of GM is on twitter. Even the ceo of godaddy uses it and is trying to make people that own a domain name threw them to register for twitter to use your domain name a a username.
They say it's a good marketing tool. Yet finding this out about twitter makes more sense to not use their services.

On wikipedia right here: en.wikipedia.org... is right from the makers of twitter themselfs. They show one peice of paper that shows the design layout of the site meaning the functions they want on the site.

The guy or ceo of twitter inc. He made that wikipedia about his company. He states in it that any information that goes threw twitter servers becomes twitters assets meaning that the company has ownership on any information you provide on it's servers. This could be account information and could be tweets. Like if you send information or a message to your friends. If this communicated lets say you talk to your friend about some engineering design. You then tried to patent it. Before you know it. Twitter can say that own it. Since in the legal jargon you agreed that any information you provided to twitters servers is their asset.

This is said right from the ceo himself. This is not fake or anything.

the wiki is : en.wikipedia.org... read about it.


I am saying alot of people even cnn alot of big corps uses twitter. Yet I talked to many people that use it and have no knowledge that their information can be sold to marketeers. Not just marketeers it could be anyone. The governement agencies. Even hackers. I am sure they don't give out any credit card info or anything like that. But the informaiton like e-mail address and what you like could help a hacker send a phising e-mail to you and make it look legit. This information could help assit a hacker.

Not just that twitter had it's share of security loopholes. Like sms(cellphone) authencations this opened and allowed cell phone or sms spoffing a hack that you can use other people cellphone numbers and log into their account. They fixed this though.

I am just saying how much information twitter could have about big corps. uhhh my mouth waters.


I just posted this to let you guys be informed. I told my friends but they didn't belive it. They said it should violate the privacy act.

I told then it dosen't because when you sign up their is legal fine print that states that any information you subit to twitter belongs to twitter. This is basicly a contact agreement. Between you and twitter inc. If you clicked ok and opened an account it meant that you agreed to their agreements and that allows them to sell your information that you provide to them.

So just be careful when dealing with twitter and make sure you don't talk to others on twitter about any projects like you are going to build a time machine and then upload a image of a schmatice. This means any invenction ideas. This means that if you provide that stuff it then will belong to Twitter according to the agreement you had with the company.

I also notice ATS is on twitter.. I personally don't use twitter at all. I think it's one of those stupid sites that have nothing anything new. I mean they only had a good marketing plot. Twitter and tweets sounds like bird chirping and could relate to chatting.


happy threading.

[edit on 21-7-2009 by computerwiz32]

There's no surprise there.

This is just the evolution of marketing and target consumerism. They use to do it in video stores when they'd make you fill out that form with your info on it and then you'd get weird mail and emails and such.

It's going to continue that way. I mean Verizon already does the same thing with text messages and web browsing, they sell that stuff to third parties who compile data about consumer trends and what not.

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Ya I know... just trying to figure out why this is legal. I know it's part of marketing.

I thought we had something called a privacy act.

I am looking for a job right now. I applied to family video and never got a call. What I am finding out is family video is putting up help wanted signs so you can apply online send your information to them they claim they will call you. Yet I never got a call. What I get now is family video marketing ads in my e-mail that I provided. I get flooded with it. I am sure they sell my information.

Godaddy did this same with me. I have 2 domain names with them. They then sold my information. I got mail from some other registar saying oh your domain is going to expire in 3 months. We want you to know our offer. they basicly is marketing their domain name registering information. I am also on the do not call list and I get not lots of marketeers on my cellphone. I once got charged 50 bucks for the call. I have sprint and sprint put on the bill that I called myself for 8 hours or something and the charge was 50 bucks. Yet me and my sister knew I was in college at the time and I keep my phone off. It said that while I was in class I called myself.

My sister called them since the phones are under her account. She told them off and infally after 2 hours of arguing they dropped the 50 bucks charge.

I am just saying that we are getting to a age called the information war age... where our information is online and could be bought by anyone.

Their is even some corporations that do exactly that. They collect every single information they can on every American. I saw it on msnbc. The show was called Big Brother.

I think it should be illegal to sell people information without them knowing . I mean even if their is a legal jargon words on the site. They should have it displayed and easily read. It shouldn't be hidden stuff.

reply to post by computerwiz32


I certainly agree that it should be illegal, but we MAKE it legal. Everytime you sign something, you are giving them the right to use such information for whatever purposes they want.

And if you refuse even one term, than that service is no longer provided for you at all.

Law is a tricky business and the problems are with the loopholes.

~Keeper

reply to post by computerwiz32


Registar information is public. Anyone can look up your domain information and know it's about to expire. If someone is paying godaddy for that information, then they are stupid.

There are people who keep an eye on domain names like that. They then try to buy it up the second it becomes available, and then tries to hold is as "ransom" for you to buy it back from them. And then you either go through legal channels to get it back, or pay them some price to get the domain name back.

You always have to agree to a terms and conditions to sign up for a site. You volunteer for it if they sell information, and there isn't anything illegal about that.

I make my living by selling information. But I don't do it secretly. I match up buyers with sellers and sometimes play the middle man. I am selling peoples information, but I am doing it as a service and it's pretty straight forward that I will be giving your information to 3rd parties. I don't sell their information to other people though, just for the service. I sometimes make $20-$30 off a single persons information, but $5-$10 per is average.

In my case the buyers of information wants the user to know that is the case, otherwise the person gets upset, they don't get a sale, and the quality of the information is low. I could trick lots of people into giving me their information, but it's worthless to do so.

It's not always a bad thing and in many cases it's what pays for the services.

I'm honestly not sure that you have to tell users you will sell their information. I know privacy policies and terms and conditions are pretty common these days that will usually say if that is the case.

I would never give facebook or twitter my information.

reply to post by badmedia


Ya, I understand about the whois lookup registar information.

they paid godaddy to automate the information to send it to them. They have a automation system. They don't have no or very little human invloved in sending mail to domain owners.

I know it's not illegal. I am just saying it should. The way they do it is ethically wrong.

I have my own website still being worked on. I do plan to do the same but I will filter the information.

I will grab the persons cookies and other stuff legally. and also grab other information.

I then will use my own software that I make to find out what sites you been too. I will then catagory your personality. If you been to technoloy sites I will label your e-mail address as a technology geek. Or something of that sort. So I can sell it to marketeers but yet do it in a ethical way.

It's better to do that then just to hand over logs or cookies taken from the user over to a marketeer.

I find that ethically wrong. Twitter and many other websites don't filder it. They grab your information and then sell it. It would give the marketeer the exact time and date you been to those sites. This gives more information that is needed for that marketeer.

People that do marketing only need to know what the person likes. What is that persons personailty and what do they buy... do they buy dog food or not.

They don't need to know eacstly how much you paid a website or what time and day you been to that website. They also sell your ip address info.

So they can direct ads to your computer. Some website sell your IP trails.

This I personally think it s violation to privacy. You should posses information on time and location and when a person paid something and how much etc.

that's too much information that a marketeer person needs.

This is key information for hackers and anyone that wants to do criminal activity.

All they do is pay the website for the information and boom. They can have a good understanding of how to tack the person and what the person does on a weekly basis.

Twitter can sell any information this includes your ip address.

I know you volenteerly sign it over. I think their should be some law to protect abusive use of others information.

Twitter never even states that they keep your information private. I mean colleges they tell you or give you a notification that whenver you give them information they make a promise statement that they keep your personal information private.

I just think how twiter and other sites take this information and sell it would infringe on my ethics. I think twitter should at least filter out my information and give a summary. Don't just pass on logs and logs of information like how long I spend at a site and when I looked at the sites.

The marketing people just need information on my personality and what I like this gives them more information on how to target their ads to me or to send ads that I would most likely would like to buy these products.

So my point is that I think it should be illegal on how these companies are giving the data to other marketeers. They should at least check who buys the informaiton that they are a registered business with any of the states in the US. If they can't provide that information then they should assume that it's a hacker rather then just giving the information to any tom and harry.

reply to post by computerwiz32


Are you sure godaddy is selling it?

I am serious, if they buy that information it's pretty dumb. I can easily write a program that does exactly what you are talking about, and I wouldn't have to buy the information from anyone.

All I need is a whois lookup. I then parse the information on the lookup, as well as when the domain will expire. I only need to check on a domain when it is new, or about to expire. When it gets close to expiring, I could then have it send out the email after checking to make sure it hasn't already been renewed - if it's been renewed, then I simply update the expiration date and it waits again. With 3 months until it expires, most will not be renewed yet.

I could write the entire system in just a few hours probably, depending on what kind of backend/admin options were wanted/needed.

As for what should be illegal and legal. It should be legal as it is. If you don't like it, then don't use the service. It's a private business, it's their choice. It's your choice not to visit. I am not a member of facebook or twitter. I choose not to use them, and they don't get to sell my information. Works perfectly.

Trying to force the world into what you think is right is a sure fire way of being forced into what someone else thinks is right, as you are basically saying it is ok for such to be done.

I believe this knowledge- knowing that twitter has such power- more to the point, that they are using it wrongly, instills in me a wanting them to lose business [-Not really but, in general, that is what I felt could and should happen if they keep that behavior active- I don't mean anything too much by that- I am just pointing out that I am, somewhat obviously, angry. ]. Why? People with businesses might want to share private information, private plans for the company with fellow company members, information involved in plans. That kind of information is private, and the whole point of having a private twitter account, having one's updates only visible to individuals or companies of the account owner's choice, is to keep certain information under the weather for the benefit of the owner of the account. I think twitter needs rights to know what is written on twitter, for regulation of laws, seeing as illegal activity could take place due to planning such activities via private twitter account posts. So, twitter and the FBI might want to keep an eye on such content. They need to keep a code of honor, to keep such information between twitter and the FBI [or American government (as far as America goes, I mean) in general, whomever really needs to know such information, you get the idea]. What about companies maintaining privacy for the sake of competition among businesses? What I am getting at is, if twitter is capable-lawfully able to sell user information, then one company or several companies can buy this information from twitter, and create the product or use the ideas belonging to the user or company who wrote of it or posted of it via their private twitter account. To use such information improperly, inappropriately- for profit even- is all sorts of wrong. So, I see a problem with this legal right belonging to twitter. It needs an adjustment.

[edit on 24-7-2009 by JenniferCecelia]

Hi/
I use both facebook and twitter,should I really care if they sell the info I put out there?
It's not really my info,so I dont mind!
I mean,I dont have any personal information on there,apart from my name...
I use it to post stuff,that's it!


ICXC NIKA
helen

Originally posted by badmedia
reply to post by computerwiz32

 

As for what should be illegal and legal. It should be legal as it is. If you don't like it, then don't use the service. It's a private business, it's their choice. It's your choice not to visit. I am not a member of facebook or twitter. I choose not to use them, and they don't get to sell my information. Works perfectly.

True- then, in-order for individual and company twitter user to decide if they want their information so very public- and to decide, then, to continue with the hassle and expense of creating their own private, electronic communication methods (in reference to companies mainly, I presume)- they need to know that their information is in such a state, via twitter. For that to happen, this fact about twitter needs to be exploited. Well- I'll help [at least some].

[edit on 24-7-2009 by JenniferCecelia]

reply to post by badmedia


ya, I am pretty sure cuz people I knew from highschool asked me about web hosting and I directed them to godaddy. I later on asked them what they did and they got hosting services etc. They also bought a automated whois service. Where they get notified if a domain name is free or pending to expire. Yet it's not just that but they also give information about the value of that name. Ya you can say they are stupid but I know for sure people that pay for that don't know anything about computers but they think they do.

Twitter, facebook, and google are all government operations. It's blatantly obvious. The owner of facebook even called the users "dumb f*ckers" for posting their private information.