Twitter Privacy Analysis

PROBLEM

This case analysis focuses on Twitter in early 2010. At a time when they had a market valuation of $1 billion as a free service, they simply lacked a viable business plan. Twitters’ challenge? Find a balance between generating revenue strategies, as well as, protecting the privacy rights of the 100+ million using Twitter’s popular social networking service. With all the information available to them via their Twitter network, and their 100+ million Tweeters, Twitter could (and should) be generating massive amounts of revenue through use of the data. The challenge is that users could see this as a breach of their privacy. In the world of social networking, trust is everything! Twitter must find a way to use this information without violation of users privacy and making sure that their site is secure enough to ward of Internet hackers and spammers. In our analysis, we will expand on this further through deeper analysis and provide a few recommendations for Twitter going forward.

ANALYSIS

The main concerns relevant to data privacy on the Internet, is users personal information being used for what it was consented for. If not protected properly, hackers/spammers could access this personal information without permission and use it for illegal acts. Sites collecting data, such as Twitter, have a duty - no, a right - to maintain this integrity with users. Twitter has followed the legal requirements for social networking operations and has done so within their sign-up/registration process. New members must agree to the terms and conditions of the Privacy Policy before completing registration. Within the Privacy Policy, however, users must consent to the sharing of their information, along with Twitters promise of using information for purposes it was intended. In other words, no information should be misused by Twitter.

Twitter was founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Biz Stones. All three individuals held leadership roles in the firm....