Last month, we saw WhatsApp’s new policy change, which made sharing data with its parent company Facebook mandatory. The new changes in the policy came with serious backlash from users worldwide. Still, WhatsApp has given its justification and proper explanation as to why data sharing is required and important. Now it seems that data sharing will not have so many serious complications.
Regardless, the new policy change received severe backlash from many users while some users were fine with the policy change. Users who are fine with the policy update states that digital privacy is only but a myth.
The major reason for the backlash was that for any previous changes users had the option to opt-out of the service, but the latest policy update made it compulsory for the users to comply with the latest changes in its policy. If the users did not comply with the updates, it would result in losing your WhatsApp account.
But the latest policy update did face scrutiny from the users, but several organizations also opposed the new update. Reports indicate that the Turkish government even proposed an anti-trust investigation on WhatsApp. WhatsApp decided to halt the policy change but did clarify that it will take place eventually, and they are just giving the users more time to read about the new policy changes.
WhatsApp recently announced that the service will start displaying a banner in the app to provide more information about its new policy changes.
“We also think it’s important people know how we can provide WhatsApp for free. Every day millions of people start a WhatsApp chat with a business because it’s easier to do so than placing a phone call or exchanging emails. We charge businesses to provide customer service on WhatsApp – not people. Some shopping features involve Facebook so that businesses can manage their inventory across apps. We display more information directly on WhatsApp so people can choose if they want to engage with businesses, or not.”
WhatsApp in its blog post stated that some developers claim about not being able to read people’s messages even though they do not offer end-to-end encryption.
“Other apps say they’re better because they know even less information than WhatsApp.We believe people are looking for apps to be both reliable and safe, even if that requires WhatsApp having some limited data. We strive to be thoughtful on the decisions we make and we’ll continue to develop new ways of meeting these responsibilities with less information, not more.”
