Company X, formerly known as Twitter, is currently embroiled in a class-action lawsuit in the Netherlands. The legal battle revolves around the actions of its former subsidiary, MoPub, which stands accused of engaging in the unauthorized “trafficking” of personal data belonging to millions of users.
Illicit Data Collection and Sharing
Between October 2013 and December 2021, MoPub, an advertising platform owned by Twitter at the time, illicitly collected and shared user data from over 30,000 free mobile applications. Notably, this data collection occurred without the explicit consent of users, constituting a severe violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) established by the European Union (EU).
Implications and Legal Action
The Dutch non-profit Data Protection Foundation (SDBN) spearheads the lawsuit, representing the interests of approximately 11 million adults and 1 million children whose data was handled by the company, notes NIXSolutions. With financial backing from the London-based private equity group Orchard Global Capital Group, SDBN seeks both compensation for affected individuals and the complete deletion of unlawfully acquired data. Beyond monetary relief, the lawsuit aims to prompt a paradigm shift in data handling practices across the entire IT industry, thus preventing similar infringements in the future.