Elon Musk’s Lawyer Sends Letter to Microsoft CEO due to Abusing Twitter’s Data Access

The letter did not mention a lawsuit, however, and Musk threatened to seek legal redress if there was a need when he first mentioned this breach in April.

There appears to be a hidden data war brewing between Twitter Inc and US tech giant Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). This claim stems from letter Elon Musk’s personal lawyer, Alex Spiro, sent it to Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, about the abuse of access to the social media API.

The issue at hand

The news was first reported by The New York Times claiming that Microsoft has violated “multiple provisions” of the social media company’s developer agreement for an extended period of time. Twitter accuses Microsoft of using its data APIs in 8 of its apps including Bing, xBox One, Azure, and Power Platform to name a few.

Despite this expanded use, Elon Musk’s team said that only two of the products were looking for appropriate permissions. With Twitter adjusting its terms of use so that developers can generally pay for some of its data content, Microsoft backed away from using the APIs sometime in April of this year.

The letter specifically claimed that there were “unauthorized uses and purposes” and that Microsoft had failed to inform it of “any use case of six of the eight Microsoft applications that continued to function as of last month”.

“The agreement makes it clear that Microsoft was obligated to disclose and obtain approval of the intended use case for each Microsoft app, and to notify Twitter of any material modification to those use cases,” the letter read. The eight that continued to work until last month.”

The letter, after mentioning some of the perceived ways Microsoft abused its generosity, also gave a very specific request. This order included a full “compliance audit” on all Microsoft apps that used Twitter data up to the time support was discontinued by the larger tech giant. Microsoft has been given until June 7 to comply with the demands.

The letter did not mention a lawsuit, however, and Musk threatened to seek legal redress if there was a need when he first mentioned this breach in April.

Twitter data abuse: Microsoft responds

The allegation of Twitter data abuse explained a response from Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw. Shaw said in his response:

“Today we heard from a law firm representing Twitter with some questions about our past use of the free Twitter API. We will review those questions and respond appropriately. We look forward to continuing our long-term partnership with the firm.”

Twitter has been pursuing a number of monetization options since finalizing Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company. In the era of ChatGPT big data language model (LLM) training, Twitter’s current modification of its terms of use may be very profitable for it in the long run.

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Benjamin Godfrey is a blockchain enthusiast and journalist who enjoys writing about real-world applications of blockchain technology and innovations to drive public acceptance and global integration of the emerging technology. His desires to educate people about cryptocurrencies have inspired his contributions to popular blockchain-based media and websites. Benjamin Godfrey is a fan of sports and farming.

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