Nuked Hey there, my fellow tech enthusiasts! It looks like there’s drama brewing in the world of social media and big tech companies. Elon Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, recently sent a letter on behalf of Twitter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella accusing the company of violating Twitter’s developer agreement.
According to The New York Times, Spiro claims that Microsoft may have been in violation of “multiple provisions” of the agreement “for an extended period of time.” This stems from Microsoft’s use of Twitter’s APIs with some of its products, such as Xbox, Bing, and its ads platform.
However, Microsoft began pulling support for those APIs in April, likely due to Twitter’s new and more expensive API tiers. The letter claims that Microsoft violated Twitter’s developer agreement by using the API for “unauthorized uses and purposes” and not informing Twitter of “any use case for six of the eight Microsoft Apps that it continued to operate until last month.”
Spiro’s letter requests a “compliance audit” for each of the eight apps through April 2023 and demands a broad swath of information from Microsoft about each app’s use of Twitter data. The deadline for providing this information is June 7th.
Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw responded to the accusations, stating that they received a letter from a law firm representing Twitter with questions about their previous use of the free Twitter API. He added that they will review these questions and respond accordingly. The company also confirmed that it does not currently pay Twitter for data.
It’s worth noting that Spiro’s letter doesn’t mention any pending legal action. However, Musk previously threatened to sue Microsoft in April for allegedly training chatbots using illegally obtained Twitter data. Other companies, such as Reddit, have made API changes to better monetize their data without resorting to legal action.
Until we hear more, we’ll just have to wait and see how this drama unfolds. Stay tuned, my friends!
