Snapchat, which has 100 million daily active users, updated its app last week, with yet more filters to add to those messages. Along with the update, a new clause was added to its terms and conditions, allowing the company to review content created on the app and even share information with third parties. Here is an excerpt from the new terms:
By agreeing to its terms of service, users are granting the company a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to host, store, use, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit, publish, create derivative works from, publicly perform, broadcast, distribute, syndicate, promote, exhibit, and publicly display that content in any form and in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).
Snapchat’s changed terms and conditions were first highlighted in a tweet by former White House Associate Director of Public Engagement, Kal Penn. The move caused widespread outrage among its users as it contrasted to the former version of Snapchat’s privacy policy released in 2013, which had said, “delete is our default “.
Snapchat, founded in 2011 by 24-year-old Evan Spiegel and now valued at $16bn has been trying to monetize its huge user base. The new strategy is expected to help in placing contextual ads, which appear alongside Live Story’s curated posts.
Facebook and Instagram have similar terms and conditions for the user to agree to in order to use their services although they never claimed to be a private or ephemeral messaging service.
