The Facebook-owned instant messaging app, WhatsApp, has been compelled to clarify its incoming privacy policy updates, effective February 8th. The platform sent in-app notifications to its users last week, notifying them of the new privacy policy update.
Met with backlash and criticism, the platform has been clean to clarify what the updates mean in layman’s language to calm down the storm.
WhatsApp privacy policy changes don’t allow the company to check your private data. Still, misinformation has spread so fast online in this respect, fanning anger among many to the platform’s parent company. The same reason that has forced many to seek alternative messaging platforms like Signal and Telegram.
Here are some common misconceptions about the new changes:
Image/ WhatsApp
The company clarifies the new privacy policy doesn’t affect personal messages between you and your friends, family, or workmates. Instead, the new changes are aimed at business messages. The privacy policy reflects what the company announced in October on providing cloud-hosting services to business chats.
As per the new privacy policy, WhatsApp businesses will now have an option of using Facebook’s cloud-hosting services “to manage WhatsApp chats with their customers, answer questions, and send helpful information like purchase receipts.”
Communication with business is at the heart of the new privacy policy.
WhatsApp says it can see what you’re saying — whether you communicate with a business by phone, email, or WhatsApp — and may use that information for its own marketing purposes,” like advertising on Facebook. This is the most important information on the latest policy update.
“To make sure you’re informed, we clearly label conversations with businesses that are choosing to use hosting services from Facebook,” WhatsApp says. Needless to say, you can choose not to communicate with businesses via WhatsApp.
WhatsApp privacy policy changes have resulted in mass migration to alternatives like Signal and Telegram who have recorded spikes in signups since last week. Telegram now has half a billion active users. The platform recorded 25 million new registrations within 72 hours, according to its founder and CEO.
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