Twitter has reached an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to set up an independently audited security programme, which will be assessed by a third party every alternate year for ten years.

FTC, the US consumer protection body, had charged the mircroblogging site with deceiving consumers by failing to protect their personal information.

Under the terms of the settlement approved by the FTC, Twitter will be barred for 20 years from misleading consumers about the extent to which it maintains and protects the security, privacy, and confidentiality of non-public consumer information.

The FTC said that serious lapses in Twitter's security in early 2009 allowed hackers to obtain access to tweets that users had designated as private.

In January, a hacker sent a tweet from Barack Obama's account, while another sent one from the Fox News account.