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Technology Stocks : Off Topic (Every Day Technology)
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From: TimF10/10/2019 5:25:18 PM
   of 1560
 
Whoops, Twitter The Latest To Use Two Factor Authentication Phone Numbers For Marketing
Failures
from the yeah-maybe-stop-doing-that dept
Thu, Oct 10th 2019 6:06am — Karl Bode

When you sign up for security services like two-factor authentication (2FA), the phone number you're providing is supposed to be explicitly used for security. You're providing that phone number as part of an essential exchange intended to protect yourself and your data, and that information is not supposed to be used for marketing. Since we've yet to craft a formal privacy law, there's nothing really stopping companies from doing that anyway, something Facebook exploited last year when it was caught using consumer phone numbers provided explicitly for 2FA for marketing purposes.

It's not only a violation of your users' trust, it incentivizes them to not use two-factor authentication for fear of being spammed, making everybody less secure. As part of Facebook's recent settlement with the FTC the company was forbidden from using 2FA phone numbers for marketing ever again.

Having just watched Facebook go through this, Twitter has apparently decided to join the fun. In a blog post, the company this week acknowledged that participants of the company's Tailored Audiences and Partner Audiences advertising system may have had their phone numbers used for 2FA used for marketing as well:
"We cannot say with certainty how many people were impacted by this, but in an effort to be transparent, we wanted to make everyone aware. No personal data was ever shared externally with our partners or any other third parties. As of September 17, we have addressed the issue that allowed this to occur and are no longer using phone numbers or email addresses collected for safety or security purposes for advertising."
techdirt.com
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