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Twitter apologises, but use of users' images in endorsements still legal

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By Steven Raeburn, N/A

July 25, 2013 | 2 min read

Twitter has issued an apology after it included users’ images in marketing tweets without their knowledge or permission.

"Not OK..."

The San Francisco Chronicle uncovered a blog posting which showed three twitter users seemingly tweeting enthusiastic messages of endorsement for commercial products.

Twitter swiftly issued an apology acknowledging that the practice was ‘Not OK’. However, the micro logging site’s terms and conditions specifically permit the use of images users’ details in this fashion.

The current terms and conditions state that users agree that twitter has the right to “make Content submitted to or through the Services available to other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter for the syndication, broadcast, distribution or publication of such Content on other media and services [...] with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Content that you submit”.

The apology from Twitter read: “An earlier version of this blog post included an image with mock Tweets from real users of our platform. This was not OK.”

It added: “Once we became aware of this mistake we took it down immediately. We deeply apologize to the three users included in the earlier images.”

One of the users whose likeness was used has said that he intends to take legal action against twitter.

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