<story><title>Twitter used phone numbers provided for security to target ads (2019)</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/8/20905383/twitter-phone-numbers-email-addresses-targeted-advertising</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>techlaw</author><text>&amp;quot;will likely owe a fine of up to $250 million&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arstechnica.com&amp;#x2F;tech-policy&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;twitter-faces-ftc-probe-likely-fine-over-use-of-phone-numbers-for-ads&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arstechnica.com&amp;#x2F;tech-policy&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;twitter-faces-ft...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Twitter used phone numbers provided for security to target ads (2019)</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/8/20905383/twitter-phone-numbers-email-addresses-targeted-advertising</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mgbmtl</author><text>Interesting bits: &amp;quot;No personal data was ever shared externally with our partners or any other third parties.&amp;quot; Advertisers uploaded lists with email&amp;#x2F;phone, and Twitter matched them to users.&lt;p&gt;In any case, it does not help paranoid people like me, who are always reluctant to share a phone number as a recovery method (I use self-hosted email, it&amp;#x27;s the most reliable recovery method, but I understand it&amp;#x27;s not an option for most people).</text></comment>