In a big relief to Snapchat, the company has successfully settled charges with Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has accused it of deceiving consumers by promising that photos sent on its service disappeared forever after a certain period of time.
Under the terms of the settlement, the company’s privacy practices will be monitored by an independent professional for the next 20 years.
In a statement, Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said, “If a company markets privacy and security as key selling points in pitching its service to consumers, it is critical that it keep those promises.
The FTC says photos sent on the messaging startup could be saved by recipients using several methods. According to the federal agency, Snapchat collected certain personal info of its users without their permission and failed to secure these user data. This security lapse resulted in a breach which helped hackers compile a database of 4.6 million Snapchat user names and phone numbers.
In a post on Snapchat’ official blog, the company has acknowledged its mistakes and attributed the goof to being a young company focused on developing its product.
“While we were focused on building, some things didn’t get the attention they could have. One of those was being more precise with how we communicated with the Snapchat community,” the company said.
Snapchat is a leading mobile apps that provides instant chat and messaging service.
