A lawyer for Twitter owner Elon Musk has accused Microsoft of misusing the data of the microblogging website (Twitter). He has also written a letter to the information technology giant Microsoft, demanding an audit in the matter. The letter primarily focuses on Twitter’s allegations of alleged irregularities by Microsoft in obtaining information from its database of tweets. But, going forward, there is a possibility of increasing the dispute between the two companies regarding the misuse of data. Musk had earlier in a tweet accused Microsoft and its partner Open-AI of ‘illegally’ using Twitter data to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-based advanced technology like Chat-GPT.
In April Musk tweeted, “Time for trial.” The letter, signed by Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro, also centers around the same allegation. It added that Microsoft’s agreement with Twitter prohibits the company from making “inappropriate or excessive use” of the microblogging website’s data. Spiro wrote that despite these restrictions, Microsoft had acquired Twitter’s more than 26 billion tweets in the year 2022 alone. He did not provide any reference to corroborate the figure. The letter also alleges that Microsoft was supposed to inform Twitter about the potential use of its data, but the company failed to do so for six of its eight applications that collected information from Twitter’s database.
The letter also states that at least one of Microsoft’s applications supplied Twitter’s data to multiple virtual mediums, in violation of an agreement between the two parties. The point of the site is believed to be towards ‘government institutions or agencies’. Meanwhile, Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw issued a statement saying that the company will review the issues raised in the letter and thereafter make an ‘appropriate response’ to the allegations. Shaw said that ‘we look forward to maintaining our long partnership with Twitter.’ He did not respond to the allegations made in the letter in the statement.
