"Selfie" Assessment – 4 Key Lessons From Snapchat’s Settlement With The FTC

As a country we are quickly approaching a time in which most adults will be disqualified from being elected to public office because of something they posted on their social media account while growing up.  Against this backdrop of over-sharing, Snapchat, Inc. won over the hearts of its users with the promise that its mobile application would permit the user to send messages that would "disappear" after a designated number of seconds.  As the popularity of the mobile application grew, so too did concerns regarding its data security practices and its ability to deliver on the promises made to its users.  By December 2012, various methods for accessing or keeping photos and video sent through the mobile app ("snaps") began circulating on the Internet.  Then, in the final days of 2013, a vulnerability in the application allowed hackers to obtain and publish millions of Snapchat usernames and phone numbers.