WhatsApp made an important decision after widespread confusion over whether the new privacy policy would require data sharing with Facebook. With the statement made on Friday, the new privacy policy, which is scheduled to come into effect on February 8th, has been postponed for three months.
In fact, the change to the user agreement does not affect the data sharing with Facebook regarding user chats or other profile information. WhatsApp has repeatedly explained that its policy update addresses business chats where a user talks to a company’s customer service platform via WhatsApp.
“We’ve heard from many people how confused we are with our latest update,” the company said in a new blog post posted today. gave his statement. “There is a lot of misinformation that causes concern and we want to help everyone understand our principles and facts.” said.
WhatsApp has been sharing some information with Facebook since 2016, including your phone number. Unless you’re one of the rare users who chose to give up data sharing that year while this option is still available. However, WhatsApp has consistently stated that it does not look at people’s messages or listen to phone calls in their chats, and that WhatsApp conversations are encrypted end-to-end to protect against these abuses.
However, a message window notifying users of the new change was talking about how WhatsApp is working with Facebook, and also included a warning telling users to delete their accounts if they choose not to accept the new terms. This gave people the impression that they were being redirected to a user agreement with new and more offensive terms.
The company released a separate blog post this week trying to clear the confusion and added a table stating what information is protected and not shared when using WhatsApp.
However, numerous reports and analyzes have been published highlighting the inclusion of a new and broader meaning language (which WhatsApp has chosen to imply mandatory data sharing and says it is misunderstood) to the privacy policy. In addition, misinformation on social media has literally generated a reaction to the privacy of WhatsApp users. As a result, there has been an increase in messaging recordings to competitors such as Signal and Telegram.
We want to address some rumors and be 100% clear we continue to protect your private messages with end-to-end encryption. pic.twitter.com/6qDnzQ98MP
— WhatsApp (@WhatsApp) January 12, 2021
Now WhatsApp says it will use this quarterly delay to better explain both the changes in its new policy and long-standing privacy practices regarding personal chats, location sharing and other sensitive data. In the blog post, “We’re retracting the date when people will be asked to review and accept the terms.” is trying.
WhatsApp said earlier this month that anyone who does not accept the new terms of service agreement, whose changes were reported, will not lose access to the app. “We will also do a lot more to clear false information about how privacy and security works in WhatsApp. Then, we will gradually engage with people to review the policy at their own pace before new business options become available on May 15th. ” said.
WhatsApp aims to finally implement the changes it targets, even if it is on May 15th. But the company wants to clear additional time confusion and enlighten people on what will actually change and how to improve the messaging experience.
“The update includes new options for people to send messages to a business on WhatsApp and provides more transparency in how we collect and use data. While not everyone is shopping with a business on WhatsApp today, we think it is important that more people will choose to do so in the future and that people are aware of these services. It is called in the blog post. “This update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook.”
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