Snapchat Rejects $3b Offer by NSA/CIA (Facebook)

Why all the interest in these internet start-ups? Intelligence gathering perhaps?

By General Maddox.
The I.T world was shocked to see yet another rejection by 23 year old Snapchat co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel, to sell the two year old App to social media giant Facebook Inc. The US$3b offer was turned down and no official statement has been made as to why. Speculation by the industry is that Snapchat is holding out for more money. With new offers coming in from the worlds 3rd largest internet company, behind Google and Amazon, the Chinese owned Tencent Holdings Ltd has made an offer closer to US$4b so why not hold out for more cash?

But that’s not really the question that needs to be asked.

What people should be asking is; Why does the NSA/CIA (Facebook) want to buy a company that, according to the Wall Street Journal has,

No sales and no business model?

And according to Salon

No revenue and no obvious paths to revenue?

If you’re wondering why I refer to Facebook as NSA/CIA then please read these two previous articles published on Real News Australia.
– Social Media: How the consumers become the product
– NSA taps into user data of Facebook, Google and others, secret files reveal

Now do you see why Facebook is interested in buying a company that doesn’t make any money? But what would the U.S government spy agencies want Snapchat for? The pictures are deleted from the sender and the recipients device from between 1 – 10 seconds after viewing the message right? WRONG!!!

Please don’t tell me you actually thought they were deleted?! Well you’re not alone. Snapchat won’t reveal just how many users they have on record but they did however reveal that there are 350 million messages sent via their service per day as of September 2013!!! (Up from 200 million per day in June!).

Conservatively I would estimate they have somewhere around 100 million users. How many of them do you think realise their secret sexts aren’t being deleted? Oh? You thought the whole concept of the Snapchat app was that once it’s been seen it can’t be seen again?
See here from the Snapchat Privacy Policy [emphasis added]:

When you send or receive Snaps, we also temporarily collect, process and store the contents of the Snaps (such as photos, videos and/or captions) on our servers. The contents of Snaps are also temporarily stored on the devices of recipients. Once all recipients have viewed a Snap, we automatically delete the Snap from our servers and the Snapchat mobile application is programmed to delete the Snap from the recipients’ devices. We cannot guarantee that deletion always occurs within a particular timeframe. We also cannot prevent others from making copies of your Snaps (e.g., by taking a screenshot). If we are able to detect that the recipient has captured a screenshot of a Snap that you send, we will attempt to notify you. In addition, as for any other digital information, there may be ways to access Snaps while still in temporary storage on recipients’ devices or, forensically, even after they are deleted. You should not use Snapchat to send messages if you want to be certain that the recipient cannot keep a copy.

Now do you see why two of the most intrusive intelligence gathering agencies A.K.A Facebook want Snapchat for themselves?

But hey, who reads Privacy Policies or End User Licence Agreements anyway? If you don’t believe me then just keep continuing to “Accept”. Seems to be the trend these days with society.