Twitter is being sued for invading users’ privacy over its practice of replacing hyperlinks in direct messages with its own “t.co” short links. Californian Wilford Raney filed a class action lawsuit [PDF] against the company in San Francisco this week and is seeking millions of dollars in damages. Backdoored Business Routers An Emerging ThreatAccording to Raney, Twitter represents that its direct messages, or DMs, are entirely private between users, but in reality the company “reads” all such messages despite not having sought users’ permission.
This violates both the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the California Invasion of Privacy Act, the lawsuit claims.
At the heart of the issue is Twitter’s system of replacing hyperlinks in people’s messages with its own shortlinks that use its t.co domain address. Raney says that this practice is equivalent to “reading” private communications.
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