Thursday, May 8, 2014

Snapchat Settles With FTC

Venice, California-based Snapchat has settled charges with the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC said Thursday afternoon, and has agreed to misrepresent the extent to which it maintains the privacy, security, and confidentiality of users' information--and will also be required to implement a "comprehensive privacy program" monitored for the next 20 years. The FTC charges came out both the agency's dis-satisfaction with the way Snapchat represented how difficult it was to pull screenshots and video from the app, as well as the widely publicized security breach where hackers pulled 4.6 million Snapchat usernames and phone numbers from the service. The FTC said that Snapchat made "multiple misrepresentations" about its product in the area of privacy and security. The FTC cited the ability of third party apps to log into Snapchat--and save snaps indefinitely--as well as a number of security holes which would leave videos in a user's mobile phone, fail to notify people of screenshots, and misrepresentation of its data collection policies.

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