Twitter Faces Privacy Suit over Direct Messages

In 2011, Twitter released an analytics tool that would improve tracking. When a user embedded a link into a public tweet, Twitter's tool would swap that link with one leading to a website owned by Twitter. Users who click on the link would first be brought to Twitter's page and then referred to the intended content, allowing websites to know how many page views were coming from Twitter.

Though that feature is only openly discussed by Twitter for public tweets, the same process is used for direct messages, according to the Edelson lawyers.

“In order for Twitter to detect there's a URL, it basically has to read and scan every word of the private message and then swaps out any links,” Edelson partner Alexander Nguyen says.

Edelson has pursued a number of privacy class actions, and its founding partner Jay Edelson was recently called ” if not the most hated person in Silicon Valley, very close to it” by the New York Times. See, http://nyti.ms/1iz2PFq.

Laso last month, the firm secured final approval for a $1.25 million settlement in a 2012 privacy case against LinkedIn Corp. Edelson was awarded $312,500 in attorney fees, roughly $50,000 less than the firm had sought.

Asked about the relatively small award, Edelson partner Nguyen said the firm doesn't do its work for the money.

“Privacy is something that is important for everybody but also difficult to put into actual numbers,” Nguyen said, adding that some of the firm's victories come before the “general public appreciates how important it is.”

“That is something,” he said, “that gives us our sense of purpose.”

David Ruiz writes for The Recorder, the San Francisco-based ALM sibling of Internet Law & Strategy. He can be reached at [email protected].

Twitter Inc. has been hit with a proposed class action alleging that the company's handling of direct messages between users violates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), 18 U.S.C. '2510-22.

The complaint, filed last month by attorneys at Chicago-based Edelson, claims that the ostensibly private messages are scanned and altered by an algorithm, which replaces hyperlinks with customized links. “But, while Twitter reads the contents of its users' direct messages, Twitter never obtains (or even seeks) its users' consent,” the suit states.

A Twitter spokesperson denied the allegations. “We believe these claims are meritless, and we intend to fight them,” the spokesperson said.

In 2011, Twitter released an analytics tool that would improve tracking. When a user embedded a link into a public tweet, Twitter's tool would swap that link with one leading to a website owned by Twitter. Users who click on the link would first be brought to Twitter's page and then referred to the intended content, allowing websites to know how many page views were coming from Twitter.

Though that feature is only openly discussed by Twitter for public tweets, the same process is used for direct messages, according to the Edelson lawyers.

“In order for Twitter to detect there's a URL, it basically has to read and scan every word of the private message and then swaps out any links,” Edelson partner Alexander Nguyen says.

Edelson has pursued a number of privacy class actions, and its founding partner Jay Edelson was recently called ” if not the most hated person in Silicon Valley, very close to it” by the New York Times. See, http://nyti.ms/1iz2PFq.

Laso last month, the firm secured final approval for a $1.25 million settlement in a 2012 privacy case against LinkedIn Corp. Edelson was awarded $312,500 in attorney fees, roughly $50,000 less than the firm had sought.

Asked about the relatively small award, Edelson partner Nguyen said the firm doesn't do its work for the money.

“Privacy is something that is important for everybody but also difficult to put into actual numbers,” Nguyen said, adding that some of the firm's victories come before the “general public appreciates how important it is.”

“That is something,” he said, “that gives us our sense of purpose.”

David Ruiz writes for The Recorder, the San Francisco-based ALM sibling of Internet Law & Strategy. He can be reached at [email protected].