Twitter accuses Microsoft of using data in unauthorized ways

Twitter is blaming microsoft Use social media company data in any manner that is not authorized and has never been disclosed.

Alex Spiro, a partner at Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart & Sullivan and an attorney for Twitter owner Elon Musk, wrote to Microsoft on Thursday, citing “several clauses” in the contract with Microsoft. It may have been violated,” he said. Twitter about data usage.

It’s the latest rift between tech companies amid growing debate over who owns data that can be used to train artificial intelligence and machine-learning software.new york times first reported A copy was written in the letter obtained By CNBC.

After Musk led the acquisition of Twitter in October and named himself CEO, the company launched an application programming interface that allows developers to embed tweets in their software and services, as well as access Twitter data. API) usage fee.

The API was previously free to use by select researchers, partners and developers who agreed to Twitter’s terms. Twitter API-driven apps include Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Sprinklr.

According to Spiro’s letter to the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella And the company’s board of directors said last month that Microsoft “refused to pay even a discounted rate for continued access to Twitter’s APIs and content.”

As of April, Spiro wrote that Microsoft had at least five products using the Twitter API, including the Azure cloud, the Bing search engine, and the Power Platform low-code application development tool.

This agreement limits excessive use of Twitter’s programming interfaces. However, for one Microsoft service that uses Twitter data, “the account information clearly states that the customer intends to allow the customer to ‘circumvent throttling limits,'” Spiro said. writes.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the letter and told CNBC that the company will review the letter and “respond appropriately.”

“Today, we received several questions from the law firm representing Twitter regarding our past use of the free Twitter API,” a spokesperson said in an email. “We look forward to continuing our long-term partnership with the company.”

Musk has publicly criticized Microsoft’s close relationship with OpenAI, the creator of the chatbot ChatGPT. Musk was an early backer of OpenAI, which has since raised billions of dollars from Microsoft and built its AI technology into many of its core products.

“Microsoft currently has a very strong say, if not direct control, over OpenAI.” Musk told CNBC. in an interview this week.Nadella recently challenged Musk’s claims In an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, Microsoft said it had a “non-controlling interest” in the startup.

Spiro did not name OpenAI or mention its ChatGPT, DALL-E applications, or large language models in the letter. He asked Microsoft for details about “a description of the token pooling implemented in any Microsoft app, such as how long the token pooling occurred and how many tokens were pooled.” I was.

Musk and Nadella recently had another exchange.

Musk reportedly reached out to Nadella last year while he was raising money to buy Twitter. text message made public through court filings. In a text to Musk, Nadella wrote, “I will definitely follow up on feedback from Teams!” Teams is Microsoft’s chat app.

You can read the full text of Twitter’s letter to Microsoft here.