How to Prevent Twitter From Sharing Your Data With Advertisers
Know before tweeting: Twitter now sells more information about your activities on its platform to third-party advertisers, regardless of which privacy settings you turn on or off. Users logging into the service recently received a push notification informing them that the company has changed its privacy policy and no longer allows its users to opt out of sharing their data with other companies. As Twitter wrote (confusingly):
“Your control over what information Twitter shares with its business partners has changed. In particular, you have removed the ability to control mobile app advertising measurements, but you can control whether certain non-public data should be shared to improve Twitter’s marketing activities on other sites and apps. These changes, which help Twitter continue to operate as a free service, are now reflected in your settings. “
What does this mean in plain English? According to Twitter spokesman David Cohen of Adweek , changing user privacy settings is only part of Twitter’s new advertising strategy:
“Twitter shares certain sensitive personal information with advertisers who run mobile app campaigns on Twitter. This information may include which ads have been seen, viewed or otherwise interacted with by a particular browser or device; but does not include your name, email address, phone number, or Twitter username. For example, Twitter may report that a mobile device ID has viewed or clicked an advertisement for a specific mobile application. “
Should this bother you? If you live in a European Union country where the GDPR is in force – this is the General Data Protection Regulation – you can still opt out of providing this information. Otherwise, Twitter will do it, and there is nothing you can do about it. At the very least, your activity is still “anonymous”, just like any type of advertising or tracking mechanism is effectively anonymous at this time.
However, you can still control some of what you share with Twitter advertisers, and now is a good time to go back to those settings.
How to stop Twitter from tracking you and your data
- Open the Twitter app or homepage .
- Go to the settings and privacy page, which can be found by clicking on your profile picture in the upper left corner of the app, or by clicking this link for the web version of Twitter.
- Tap or click the Privacy & Security subsection, then Personalization & Data.
Each option on this page refers to a specific type of information that Twitter collects and, in many cases, shares with other companies. Unchecking the box next to one of the categories will theoretically disable tracking of this data.
Our advice? Uncheck all boxes . Tap or click the Personalization & Data radio button at the top of the page to turn off all settings in the Personalization & Data menu. This disables all collection and sharing of data – at least the data and collection over which users gain control. While this does not mean that you are anonymous on Twitter or that you have not yet been tracked or profiled in some capacity, each helps a little. Isn’t online advertising entertaining ?