Jaap Arriens | NurPhoto | Getty Images
WhatsApp has postponed a privacy policy update that caused confusion and backlash among users over fears it could lead to wider data exchanges with the messaging app owner, Facebook.
“We have heard from so many people how much confusion there is around our recent update. There is a lot of misinformation that concerns us and we want to help everyone understand our principles and the facts,” WhatsApp said in a blog post last weekend. .
The updates specifically addressed features that allow users to send messages and communicate with businesses on WhatsApp. Last year, Facebook announced that companies using WhatsApp will be able to store and manage their chats with customers using Facebook’s “secure hosting infrastructure”.
As part of this, a business can see the content of the message between the business and a user and can use that information for its own marketing purposes, including advertising on Facebook.
WhatsApp would start asking users to accept updated terms and conditions to continue using the app on February 8. But Facebook said it is now pushing the date back so people can review and accept the terms. No one will have their account suspended or deleted on Feb. 8, Facebook added. People will “gradually” have the opportunity to review policies “at their own pace” before the new business options are available on May 15th.
The privacy updates caused “confusion,” WhatsApp said. Many users took it that the app would share more data, including messages, with Facebook.
Many users were concerned that the updated privacy policy signaled wider data exchange between WhatsApp and Facebook. But that is not the case. Since 2016, WhatsApp has been sharing certain data with Facebook, such as your telephone number.
But the content of messages cannot be viewed by WhatsApp or Facebook. That’s because they are encrypted. That will not change.
However, users concerned about their privacy looked to rival messaging apps Signal and Telegram. These two apps market themselves as privacy-focused, and both reported increasing downloads.
On Saturday, Signal suffered an outage due to an influx of users. Signal said last week “adding new servers and additional capacity every day in record time,” and the app came back online on Sunday.