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Snapchat sexting scandal could scare off investors

By
Kaja Whitehouse
Published Nov. 14, 2013, 9:48 p.m. ET

Oh, snap!

Snapchat, the self-destructing photo-sharing app that recently snubbed a $3 billion offer from Facebook, might want to reconsider.

Just a day after reports that the company had turned down the billions, Snapchat — a 2-year-old startup with no revenue — was ensnared in a sexting scandal that underscores the dangers of the app, especially for its young users.

Montreal police arrested 10 teenage boys Thursday on child-porn charges for passing around pictures of girls ages 13 to 15 in sexual poses or performing sexual acts. The boys allegedly coaxed their female friends into posing for the pictures and sending them using SnapChat.

The girls thought the pictures would vanish within seconds. Instead, the boys found ways to get around the time limit. Those can include taking screen shots of the phone, finding hidden files on the device or taking a picture of the phone with another phone.

The privacy scare could crimp Snapchat’s efforts to win up to $200 million in a fund-raising round that could value the company at $3 billion to $4 billion, say experts.

“If the valuation is based on privacy protection and they fail to provide it, the company will find itself losing its user base quickly — and even faster than companies that don’t promise privacy in the first place,” said Larry Chiagouris, a marketing professor at Pace University.

Snapchat didn’t return The Post’s request for comment.

But there’s little doubt that privacy has become its major selling point. Bill Gurley, whose Benchmark Capital is one of Snapchat’s biggest venture capital backers, promoted Snapchat’s privacy features Tuesday when he linked to a tweet from the Federal Communications Commission, which warned that 30 percent of college admissions officers look at applicants online.

“If you still don’t understand Snapchat, take a look at this tweet from our government’s FCC,” Gurley tweeted.

Gurley’s Benchmark was part of a $60 million round of fund-raising that closed in June, giving Snapchat a valuation of $800 million.

Snapchat lets users send photo and video messages that disappear after they are viewed, usually within 10 seconds.

In September its CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel said users were sharing 350 million photos a day . Users of Facebook’s photo and video-sharing service Instagram post an average 55 million photos a day.