Twitter has been hit with a class action lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco after one Wilford Raney accused the mega social media app for eavesdropping on direct messages. The accuser believes that Twitter intercepts and replaces links when it is sent from one twitter handler to another. This means that instead of the link going directly to the source of which it was excerpted from, it has to pass twitters analytic service.
Take for example, if a link is sent like "www.nytimes.com", Twitter then changes this link to "http:/t.co/CL2SKBxr1s" while still displaying the text "www.nytimes.com" to its users. And once the link is clicked, users are first directed to Twitter's t.co website then forwarded to the original link or source. This becomes complicated for garnering hits or traffic. Explained in the suit is how this process works, "In the example given, the New York Times would identify Twitter as the source of internet traffic, whereas without replacing the link the source would be anonymous. The end result is that Twitter can negotiate better advertising rates."
In Twitter's privacy policy, it tells the user that they will keep track of how users interact with link; this will be an interesting case in the court of law. Twitter reacted by saying that they track links to help improve their service, and to provide better advertising. The suit alleges Twitter from benefiting by replacing the links.
The class act suit cries for Twitter to stop intercepting, reading and changing direct messages without the users consent. It also seeks compensation and statutory damages under the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act and California privacy law. Twitter is not the first and only technology company that's had to deal with accusations of message scanning.
