The company said the change was part of its plan to explore ways for businesses to send messages using its platform.
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According to WhatsApp, the new policy will share the registered phone number and the last time the user had used the service.
Phone numbers will be connected with Facebook’s systems to allow targeted ads and friend suggestions but will not be shared or sold to advertisers. The process had started in the former and now it’s WhatsApp, but when anything untidy involves the world’s most popular instant chat platform be sure it is news. Facebook has in 2014 bought WhatsApp in Dollars 19-billion deal.
WhatsApp announced the change to its terms of service policy today. Scroll down to the bottom to see a toggle option for sharing your information with Facebook for “improved product experiences”.
“The FTC has an obligation to protect WhatsApp users”, Katharina Kopp, director of policy at CDD, said in a statement. “In a complaint filed Monday with the Federal Trade Commission, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy that the change betrays previous promises Facebook has made on privacy”.
That incident wasn’t the first time that Facebook had pushed the limits of consumer privacy. The article also pointed out that Facebook has a history of changing its policies without informing users in advance. Also some basic device information is being shared: “mobile carrier code, identifier, mobile country code”. If you’re not comfortable adding your phone number to a database where brands could potentially see it, then you’re in luck.
However, Facebook might not have everyone’s current number through this, because businesses often source customer numbers from warranty cards and like. Now that they are finally giving in to their parent company and offering the numbers, it might bring up trust issues and concern from their huge fanbase.
So no matter what setting you choose, it seems Facebook is still getting some information from WhatsApp.
“We will be finding out more about WhatsApp’s notification process, its 30-day opt-out period, and what user data WhatsApp intends to share with Facebook”, said a spokesman for the commission.
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By now, some of you will be wondering how you opt out if you’ve hastily pressed agree already. You can find out how to do that here. That means that Facebook won’t be able to use information about who people are talking to for its advertising, meaning that WhatsApp data won’t make a difference to what shows on Facebook and vice versa.
