Twitter settles user privacy charges with feds

Twitter has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers and jeopardized their privacy by failing to protect their personal information. The case was the commission's first against a social networking service. The company has also agreed to establish an independently audited data security program.

The FTC charges that serious lapses in Twitter's data security allowed hackers to obtain administrative control of the social networking service, including access to tweets consumers had designated as private, and the ability to send out fake tweets from then-President-elect Obama and Fox News, among others.