Getty Images | Christopher Furlong
Elon Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, sent a letter to Microsoft yesterday accusing the company of using the Twitter APIs in a way that violates Twitter policies. Spiro’s letter came about a month after Microsoft stopped using APIs instead of paying new fees and Musk threatened to sue Microsoft alleging it was “illegally using Twitter data.”
“As you no doubt know, Microsoft has been using Twitter’s standard developer APIs for free for years to take advantage of Twitter’s data and services in key Microsoft products that generate tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue for Microsoft,” Spiro wrote. to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Until last month, Microsoft refused to pay even a discounted rate for continuous access to Twitter’s APIs and content, and Microsoft operated eight separate Twitter API apps, listed below, that appear to provide data and functionality for at least five separate Microsoft products and services, including Xbox One, Bing Pages, Azure, Power Platform, and Ads.”
Twitter, which is facing numerous lawsuits alleging it failed to pay its bills, is asking Microsoft to complete a compliance audit of its API usage by June 7.
Spiro’s letter stated that by registering to use the Twitter API, Microsoft agreed to abide by Twitter’s rules. “However, our recent review of Microsoft’s activity on the Microsoft apps indicates that Microsoft may have violated multiple provisions of the agreement over an extended period of time,” Spiro wrote.
Microsoft accused of exceeding rate limits
One of Spiro’s allegations is that Microsoft has exceeded Twitter’s API speed limits. Spiro did not name a specific limit, but said Twitter prohibits API users from exceeding or circumventing API limits and prohibits using the Twitter API “in any way that exceeds a reasonable request volume” or “constitutes excessive or abusive use” .
“Microsoft Apps accessed Twitter’s APIs more than 780 million times in 2022 alone and retrieved more than 26 billion tweets,” he wrote. “Indeed, for one of the Microsoft apps, Microsoft’s account information plainly states that it intends to allow its customers to ‘bypass the limits’.”
When contacted by Ars, Microsoft issued a statement confirming that it had received the letter. “We heard from a law firm representing Twitter with some questions about our previous use of the free Twitter API. We will review these questions and respond appropriately. We look forward to continuing our long-term partnership with the company.”
Spiro also alleged that Microsoft “appears to have used the Twitter API for unauthorized uses and purposes.” Microsoft’s “Azure Logic Apps for Fairfax app delivered Twitter content to a number of Microsoft endpoints pointing to a government agency or agency, despite the fact that the agreement prohibits use of the Twitter APIs on behalf of “any government-related entity” without first identify[ing] all such government end users to Twitter,” the letter said.
Microsoft was required “to disclose and obtain approval of the intended use case for each Microsoft app” and to notify Twitter of any substantial change to those use cases, he wrote. But the company is said to have “not identified a use case for six of the eight Microsoft apps it continued to use until last month.”
“The agreement also prohibits the registration of multiple apps for ‘a single use case or substantially similar or overlapping use cases.’ But Microsoft each registered multiple apps for its Bing Pages, Ads and Azure products and services, which clearly violates with this provision,” Spiro wrote.
Audit can be a prelude to a lawsuit
Finally, Spiro alleges that Microsoft violated Twitter rules on automation when using the API for Power Platform and Ads. “Microsoft’s API requests for these apps include Twitter actions subject to certain automation limitations, including retweets and direct messages,” he wrote.
The letter’s audit request asked for extensive details about how Microsoft has used Twitter APIs over the past two years, including “identification of all government-related entities served by each Microsoft app.” The audit request also seeks a description of how Microsoft used token pooling and “any other means implemented in the Microsoft apps to circumvent Twitter’s speed limits for the Twitter APIs.”
Twitter wants the audit to identify “all Twitter content…currently owned or controlled by Microsoft” and provide records describing all Twitter content “maintained by Microsoft through use of the Twitter APIs, the manner and format in which such Twitter Content was stored and how such Twitter Content was used by Microsoft.” The company, which is owned by Musk, wants details of any Twitter content Microsoft has previously obtained and destroyed and “a description of how such Twitter content was destroyed.”
The requirement for a compliance audit can be a prelude to a lawsuit. “They illegally trained using Twitter data. Time for a lawsuit,” Musk said tweeted on April 19 in response to Microsoft removing Twitter from its advertising platform instead of paying Twitter’s new API fees.
