Snapchat, the social network best known for its disappearing images, has updated its terms of service to give it the right to store users’ photos forever.
The company’s new privacy policy and terms of service dramatically broaden the scope of what it can do with users’ photos and likeness. People must agree to the updated terms in order to use a new app update released Oct. 28.
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).
If you read the fine print carefully, Snapchat notes that “some services” offer users tools to control who can see their images.
The new privacy policy also allows users’ content to “be shared with other Snapchatters and potentially the public at large.”
This is a major contrast to Snapchat’s old privacy policy, which stated simply: “Delete is our default.”
The new policies highlight Live Story—which collects posts centered around live events that the public can see—as examples where users’ ”snaps” can be shared more widely. But sharing isn’t necessarily limited to the feature, as Snapchat specifically mentions multiple times that it can distribute content through all channels “now known or later developed.”
When it comes to Live Story, Snapchat and its business partners have unrestricted license to use people’s “name, likeness, and voice.” As Tech Insider speculates, the changes are likely driven by advertising, which appear alongside Live Story’s curated posts.