Twitter alters privacy policy for third party advertisers to share data to increase ad relevance
Twitter has announced a change to its privacy policy stating that all third-party advertising partners must share their data such as browser cookie ID or cryptographic information in bid to make adverts more relevant.
The change, announced this evening, will begin in the US as the company aims to "experiment" with ways to make marketing content more relevant, highlighting content from brands and companies that the user has previously expressed interest in.
Kevin Weil, senior director of product revenue, explained in a blog: "How does this work? Let’s say a local florist wants to advertise a Valentine’s Day special on Twitter. They’d prefer to show their ad to flower enthusiasts who frequent their website or subscribe to their newsletter. To get the special offer to those people who are also on Twitter, the shop may share with us a scrambled, unreadable email address (a hash) or browser-related information (a browser cookie ID). We can then match that information to accounts in order to show them a Promoted Tweet with the Valentine’s Day deal. This is how most other companies handle this practice, and we don’t give advertisers any additional user information."
He added that the move was a bid to make its adverts more useful.
"We also want to give users simple and meaningful privacy options," he claimed, but revealed that users would be able to opt out of the service matching their account to brand messages and that it continued not to track it's user's browser related information.