EFF and Allies: X’s FTC Petition to Waive Privacy Violation Order Should be Rejected

According to the EFF and allies, X Corp is petitioning the FTC to waive privacy compliance orders—arguing that new leadership and a company restructuring should let them off the hook. But the history matters. Back in twenty eleven, Twitter reached an FTC settlement after failing to secure user data. The company renewed that order in twenty twenty-two after using account security information—phone numbers and email addresses—for targeted ads without meaningful consent. The fine was one hundred fifty million dollars, and the order runs through twenty forty-two. X's argument: corporate restructuring means they've fundamentally changed. The EFF's counter: violations have continued. The company trained its AI model Grok on user data without meaningful consent and suffered a major data breach in twenty twenty-five. X claims compliance distracts from AI innovation; the EFF warns that oversight is more critical now, not less—because AI models trained on user data create new vectors for privacy abuse.

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