As more and more developments surface following the new revisions in privacy laws of tech and social media giants, Cambridge Analytica, the marketing research company at the center of the Facebook data breach, is shutting down. During a Wednesday conference call with its employees, SCL Group, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, stated that it would be closing all its U.S. based offices, according to a report from Fox News.
The move comes after at least 87 million Facebook accounts were subject to improper procedures, including the gathering of what was thought to be private information. Even after Facebook suspended the UK-based firm, Cambridge Analytica still denied any wrongdoing.
This week, Twitter executives said it sold user data to former Cambridge employee Aleksandr Kogan’s business, GSR, giving them “one-time” access to its application programming interface to a random sample of public tweets posted between December 2014 and April 2015, the report states.
Following the revelation, Twitter released a statement to a UK news outlet saying:
“Twitter has also made the policy decision to off-board advertising from all accounts owned and operated by Cambridge Analytica. This decision is based on our determination that Cambridge Analytica operates using a business model that inherently conflicts with acceptable Twitter Ads business practices. Cambridge Analytica may remain an organic user on our platform, in accordance with the Twitter Rules.”
However, the company then claimed the data that was purchased by former employee Kogan was “never used.”
Through, via an April 30 post on Twitter, Cambridge said:
“Cambridge Analytica has never received Twitter data from GSR or Aleksandr Kogan, and has never done any work with GSR on Twitter data. GSR was only ever a contractor to Cambridge Analytica and we understand it did work for many other companies.”
Wednesday afternoon, in a report from Gizmodo, SCL Group chairman Julian Wheatland, who was reportedly tapped to take over as Cambridge’s next CEO, reportedly said both companies would be shutting down.
