Elon Musk’s photo, Twitter logos and US dollar bills are seen in this illustration, August 10, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
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Aug 18 (Reuters) – Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is trying to walk away from his deal to buy Twitter Inc ( TWTR.N ), is seeking documents from ad tech firms as part of his bid to get more lots of info on bots and spam. Twitter accounts, according to filings in a Delaware court on Thursday.
Twitter has sued Tesla’s chief executive, who has accused Twitter of withholding information about how it calculates the percentage of robots in service, in an attempt to back out of the $44 billion deal. The trial is set for October 17. read more
Musk’s lawyers have subpoenaed both Integral Ad Science (IAS) (IAS.O) and DoubleVerify (DV.N) for any documents or communications about their involvement in reviewing accounts or participating in any audit of Twitter’s user base.
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IAS and DoubleVerify, which are both based in New York, use technology to independently verify that digital ads are being viewed by real people. Advertisers use the services to ensure that the ads they pay for are seen by potential customers and not by automated bots.
Twitter, IAS and DoubleVerify did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In response to a post from a user who questioned how Twitter audits its service and also linked to a Reuters story on Musk targeting advertising firms, Musk tweeted: “These are the questions Twitter is asking everything possible to avoid the answer…”
In a counterclaim earlier this month, Musk claimed that Twitter’s monetized daily active users are 65 million lower than the company has advertised. Twitter has said it stands by its findings.
The metric measures users who access Twitter through the website or apps that are able to serve ads or paid-for products like subscriptions, according to Twitter filings.
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Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; Editing by Leslie Adler and Deepa Babington
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
