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Twitter opens old posts for sale If you thought your old (embarrassing, awkward and regrettable) posts on social networking site Twitter had vanished or were out of reach for anyone, ...

What you should know about Twitter's data sales



(REUTERS) - Twitter users are about to become major marketing fodder, as two research companies get set to release information to clients who will pay for the privilege of mining the data.



Boulder, Colorado-based Gnip Inc and DataSift Inc , based in the U.K. and San Francisco , are licensed by Twitter to analyze archived tweets and basic information about users, like geographic location. DataSift announced this week that it will release Twitter data in packages that will encompass the last two years of activity for its customers to mine, while Gnip can go back only 30 days.



"Harvesting what someone said a year or more ago is game-changing," said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego. As details emerge on the kind of information being mined, he and other privacy rights experts are concerned about the implications of user information being released to businesses waiting to pore through it with a fine-tooth comb.

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