Faced by severe backlash, Whatsapp pushes back review of new privacy policy to May 15

Whatsapp is moving back the date on which people will be asked to review and accept the terms of its new privacy policy. In its company blog, Whatsapp reassured, “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 works 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.”

As is known, earlier this month, Whatsapp updated their privacy policy that allows the messaging app to share commercial user data with parent company Facebook, as the company aims to enhance business usage among group companies.

The revised privacy norms allow the sharing of business interactions across the group. Those who do not accept the updated privacy policy which come into force in February will not be able to access their chats on the messaging platform.

Following this, Whatsapp has been facing severe criticism and there has been a massive shift of users to other messaging platforms like Signal and Telegram. In fact, such has been the increase in the number of new users that Signal has been facing global outage.

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To allay the concerns of the users Whatsapp had come out with full page front page ads on leading national dailies on January 13, 2021, wherein he reiterated that its recent Privacy Policy and Terms of Service did not affect the privacy of its users’ messages with their friends or family in any way. While listing what had changed and what hadn’t changed, Whatsapp reassured that all private messages, photos, videos, voice messages and documents shared with friends and family is protected by end-to-end encryption. What has changed is Whatsapp’s policy regarding messaging a business on the app.

In its blog, Whatsapp stated, “While not everyone shops with a business on WhatsApp today, we think that more people will choose to do so in the future and it’s important people are aware of these services. This update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook.”

It further stated, “WhatsApp was built on a simple idea: what you share with your friends and family stays between you...We also can’t see your shared location and we don’t share your contacts with Facebook...With these updates, none of that is changing. Instead, the update includes new options people will have to message a business on WhatsApp, and provides further transparency about how we collect and use data.”

Has Whatsapp’s assurance come a bit too late and will it be enough to allay privacy fears amongst users? It’s a wait and watch.

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