- By Vikas Yadav
- Sat, 20 May 2023 03:01 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
MICRO-BLOGGING site Twitter has alleged that Microsoft used the platform's data in "unauthorised" ways and circulated details with the government without permission (in a few cases), violating the agreement of data usage, according to Reuters.
Addressing a letter to Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, Alex Spiro from Musk's side asked the company to undertake a 'compliance audit' regarding the use of Twitter content. It was discovered first by New York Times.
Also Read: 'Lawsuit Time': Elon Musk After Microsoft Removes Twitter From Its Ad Platform
According to the agreement, Twitter imposes 'rate limits' on its API (application programming interface) usage by developers. "Despite these limitations, the Microsoft Apps accessed Twitter's APIs over 780 million times and retrieved over 26 billion tweets in 2022 alone", the letter reads.
Speaking of the tech giant's response, a spokesperson on Thursday said that Microsoft received information from a legal firm representing the micro-blogging platform that consisted of questions (aimed at Microsoft) on the use of free APIs of Twitter in the past. "We will review these questions and respond appropriately. We look forward to continuing our long term partnership with the company," citing the spokesperson, Reuters reported.
According to the letter accessed by The Verge, Microsoft operated "eight separate Twitter API apps" that are believed to offer functionality and data to services like Xbox One, Bing Pages, Ads and more. But it steadily ended support for these APIs last month, most likely because of the premium API plans introduced recently by Twitter. Microsoft has stopped paying for Twitter data, the tech giant shared with the New York Times.
The allegations arrive in the background of Elon Musk not favouring the rapid pace of AI innovation by big tech giants and signing an open letter. Despite this, Musk, in April, stated that he would bring 'TruthGPT' to counter artificial intelligence offerings from Microsoft and Google.
According to the news agency, the Tesla CEO criticised OpenAI (the research company behind the viral AI model ChatGPT) of "training the AI to lie" and termed it a "for profit" organisation "closely" linked with Microsoft. Further, Musk also accused Larry Page, Google's cofounder, of taking AI safety lightly.