On Thursday, WhatsApp updated its terms of service and privacy policy to say that it will finally start sharing user data with Facebook, which bought the messaging app for 19 billion dollars back in 2014. Although WhatsApp promises that users will still not see any ads within the app itself, your WhatsApp information could be used for better targeting of ads and showing “You may also know” profiles on Facebook. Reading through the updated terms, it’s clear that this is just one small change, and that WhatsApp is actually looking to become a very different platform now.
WhatsApp has rewritten its legal policy for the first time since 2012, ostensibly with the aim of making it easier to understand, but it brings in a few big changes along the way. For one thing, the terms now officially reflect the fact that WhatsApp is a part of Facebook, and secondly, they now open up the possibility of WhatsApp being used for commercial messaging. We went over the new terms in detail, and here are some of the key points that we read, and what they mean to you.
We joined Facebook in 2014. WhatsApp is now part of the Facebook family of companies. Our Privacy Policy explains how we work together to improve our services and offerings, like fighting spam across apps, making product suggestions, and showing relevant offers and ads on Facebook. Nothing you share on WhatsApp, including your messages, photos, and account information, will be shared onto Facebook or any of our other family of apps for others to see, and nothing you post on those apps will be shared on WhatsApp for others to see.
Your messages are yours, and we can’t read them. We’ve built privacy, end-to-end encryption, and other security features into WhatsApp. We don’t store your messages once they’ve been delivered. When they are end-to-end encrypted, we and third parties can’t read them.
New ways to use WhatsApp. We will explore ways for you and businesses to communicate with each other using WhatsApp, such as through order, transaction, and appointment information, delivery and shipping notifications, product and service updates, and marketing. For example, you may receive flight status information for upcoming travel, a receipt for something you purchased, or a notification when a delivery will be made. Messages you may receive containing marketing could include an offer for something that might interest you. We do not want you to have a spammy experience; as with all of your messages, you can manage these communications, and we will honor the choices you make.
In 2009, WhatsApp’s policy was really simple. “We have not, we do not, and we will not ever sell your personal information to anyone. Period. End of story,” wrote founder Jan Koum. By 2012, the policy had… evolved – WhatsApp’s policy now stated, “We do not use your mobile phone number or other Personally Identifiable Information to send commercial or marketing messages without your consent or except as part of a specific program or feature for which you will have the ability to opt-in or opt-out.” Today, it reads: “We will explore ways for you and businesses to communicate with each other using WhatsApp.”
Information Technology is kind an area which is open for the developers always. I am not sure how much it is secure sharing our phone number to facebook. Explore business communication and interest and what it will give to the user who uses such application. They are saying our messages are encrypted and cannot be read by third parties. But what about them? How do they analyze our interest just by Phone Numbers? No guys, they are going to read our message by some algorithm and analyze it and then make our number used to share some unwanted commercial messages that we want to avoid. Don’t send any such messages that will harm your personal identification avoid sharing anything that will use against you like your bank details, any transactions etc.
