Snapchat, the mobile application that have spread widely across the world and became one of the most popular apps was unfortunately too good to be true, with the promise of complete privacy and time-limited messages that will vanish into thin air. Many people, especially Saudi women, fell to the charm of that promise, they felt safe and there was no harm behind the 10-second message, yet, an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission revealed that Snapchat's privacy settings is misleading users, and after filing a complaint, Snapchat has agreed on a settlement. It was mentioned by the chairwoman Edith Rameriz that "if a company markets privacy and security as key selling points in pitching its services to consumers, it is critical that it keeps those promises". She also mentioned that "Any company that makes misrepresentations to consumers about its privacy and security practices risks FTC action." The complaint targeted mainly five aspects of Snapchat which are: the flawed "Find Friends" feature, saving images, saving videos, transmitting the user's location, and collecting contact information. …show more content…
With that being said, the user will only be notified if the other person is using Snapchat's interface. Therefore, external apps used will allow saving of images without the user knowing. Also, any version prior to iOS7 allowed anyone to screenshot images without alerting the user. As for videos, users were able to save the video files that are usually saved in a location outside the application in a private storage area that is unreachable by other applications, by connecting their phones to the laptop and use file browsing