Twitter copies users' address books without consent
BBC
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Twitter has been storing users' contact information without prior knowledge or consent, BBC reported.
People using smartphones unknowingly pass on their address books to Twitter servers when they access the "Find Friend" feature on phone apps.
The scandal was revealed when an iPhone user discovered a full list of contacts on a social networking website. Facebook, FourSquare and Instragram are some of the well known apps to carry the same defect.
While Twitter warns the user that it will scan through contacts to reach fellow Twitter users, it fails to mention the copying and storing of the data for over 18 months.
Twitter responded to the controversy by stating that it will clean out its guidelines to be "explicit" and better express the side effects of using its application on smartphones, BBC reported.
