In its new blog on Tuesday, the Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp explained that its new policy update would not in any way impact the privacy of conversations with family or friends, but will require improvements in the messaging of a WhatsApp company account.
The clarification comes days after a change in its terms of service, which are mandatory and will come into effect next month on February 8th. The new terms give WhatsApp the right to share the data it collects from users with parent Facebook and group company Instagram, even if users don’t have accounts on these platforms. While this sharing of data was optional before, it has become mandatory now. Installs for rival apps such as Telegram and Signal, seen as more secure, have gone up in the last week. India is WhatsApp’s biggest market, with over 450 million active users.
WhatsApp also explained that it can’t view private messages or hear calls, and Facebook can’t see the shared location or exchange connections with Facebook, and it can’t hold call records. It also claimed that societies remain private.
However, if you are chatting with a business account on WhatsApp, the scenario is altogether different. “Messaging with businesses is different than messaging with your family or friends. Some large businesses need to use hosting services to manage their communication. Which is why we’re giving businesses the option to use secure hosting services from Facebook to manage WhatsApp chats with their customers, answer questions, and send helpful information like purchase receipts. But whether you communicate with a business by phone, email, or WhatsApp, it can see what you’re saying and may use that information for its own marketing purposes, which may include advertising on Facebook. To make sure you’re informed, we clearly label conversations with businesses that are choosing to use hosting services from Facebook,” the post said.
If you use its Shops commercial feature, your shopping behavior can be used to serve targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram. The new strategy of WhatsApp has begun to damage its installation numbers and, more specifically, its perception among consumers. Prominent voices like Anand Mahindra, Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Sameer Nigam have spoken about the use of Signal, an app that has received ringing endorsements fromthe likes of Elon Musk and Edward Snowden.
Signal saw 2.3 million downloads from Jan 6 to Jan 10, vs. 24,000 from Jan 1 to Jan 5, according to the latest data from SensorTower for India. Between Jan 6 and 10, WhatsApp saw 1.3 million downloads vs. 2 million from Jan 1 to Jan 5. From Jan 6 to Jan 10, Telegram saw 1.5 million installs vs 1.3 million from Jan 1 to Jan 5, respectively.
