Last Updated on 20/01/2021 by Khushi
WhatsApp made clarifications that the new changes do not change its way of handling a user’s messages, to their friends or family. Only the business messages would be subject to Facebook’s marketing strategy implementations.
Some of the misinterpretations being cleared by WhatsApp:
WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook is not keeping an eye or viewing a user’s messages to his friends or family and also does not have the authority to hear their calls. All of these chats are end-to-end encrypted.
It also does not maintain a log of the receivers and senders for a user.
It cannot trace the location one might share with his family or friends.
WhatsApp in no way allows sharing of user contacts with its parent company Facebook.
Any such data belonging to the group won’t be shared for any sort of advertisement and will remain end-to-end encrypted.
The new privacy policy changes apply to business messages. Some large scale businesses might require to utilise “secure hosting services from Facebook to manage WhatsApp chats with their customers, answer questions, and send helpful information like purchase receipts”. The interactions can be viewed by the app and can be utilised to fulfil its marketing purposes. WhatsApp will ” clearly label conversations with businesses that are choosing to use hosting services from Facebook”.
These labels would be visible to the user and so interacting under such circumstances is at their discretion.
WhatsApp’s new terms and conditions over user privacy was supposed to come into effect from February 8, on the denial of which users would lose access to their accounts. However, now the app has pushed the date to May 15. This announcement comes right after users started switching to other apps over privacy concerns.
“We’re now moving back the date on which people will be asked to review and accept the terms. No one will have their account suspended or deleted on February 8. We’re also going to do a lot more to clear up the misinformation around how privacy and security work on WhatsApp.
” We’ll then go to people gradually to review the policy at their own pace before new business options are available on May 15,” said WhatsApp.
The app has now decided to let users review the policy at a gradual pace. The app has started giving clarifications on misinformation being spread about the new amendment.
