(Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s WhatsApp is delaying an update aimed at increasing business transactions on the platform after a storm of concern from users who feared the messaging platform would dilute its privacy policy in the process.
WhatsApp users received a notification this month that it was in the process of preparing a new privacy policy and terms and conditions, and it reserves the right to share certain user data with the Facebook app.
That sparked global outrage and a rush of new users to competitor private messaging apps, including Telegram and Signal.
WhatsApp said on Friday that it would delay the launch of the new policy from February to May, that the update aimed to allow users to send messages with companies, and that the update will not affect in-person conversations, which are end-to-end. -end encryption. .
“This update does not increase our ability to share data with Facebook,” he said in a statement.
“While not everyone shops with a business on WhatsApp these days, we think more people will choose to do so in the future and it’s important that people are aware of these services,” he said.
Facebook has been rolling out business tools on WhatsApp for the past year to increase the revenues of high-growth units such as WhatsApp and Instagram while merging the e-commerce infrastructure within the company.
Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $ 19 billion in 2014, but is slow to monetize it.
The app already shares certain categories of personal information, including the user’s phone number and IP address, with Facebook.
“We don’t keep logs of who everyone sends or calls. We also cannot see your shared location and we do not share your contacts with Facebook, ”he said.
WhatsApp said in October that it would start offering in-app purchases through Facebook Shops and that it would allow companies using customer service messaging tools to store those messages on Facebook servers.
WhatsApp said at the time that chats with a company using the new hosting service would not be protected by the app’s end-to-end encryption.
Reporting by Katie Paul in San Francisco and Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Elizabeth Culliford; Adaptation by Shounak Dasgupta and Cynthia Osterman