Now it’s time to make some money. The app will now be able to send your contact number, and some other personal data to Facebook, their parent company. Users will be able to opt out of sharing their phone number with Facebook.
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“Respect for your privacy is coded into our DNA, and we built WhatsApp around the goal of knowing as little about you as possible: You don’t have to give us your name and we don’t ask for your email address”, he wrote. The French and German interior ministers called for operators of encrypted messaging services to provide a back door for law enforcers to tap into users’ messages in the course of investigations.
WhatsApp’s blog points out about the new privacy policy, and the documents will show that the app is now part of Facebook, as well as the new features launched like “end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp Calling, and messaging tools like WhatsApp for web and desktop”.
How will this affect you?
The new policy will also take on spam more actively and use WhatsApp’s integration with Facebook for better friend suggestions and drive greater reach for businesses. WhatsApp’s privacy post also appears to recommend connecting the phone number with Facebook in order to improve friend suggestions, as well as ads on Facebook.
WhatsApp is set to allow companies message you.
The company still insists that it does not sell ads when activating the service, linking to a blog post from 18th June, 2012 titled “why we don’t sell ads” that emphatically states that “remember, when advertising is involved you the user are the product”. “No data should be used unless people are informed honestly about how it’s going to be used”.
It’s worth noting the details included in the agreement: your phone number, profile name and photo, online status and status message, last seen status, and receipts.
Privacy groups have praised WhatsApp for building powerful encryption into its services, making it impossible for the company or anyone else to read users’ messages.
Existing users can also opt out of the sharing policy after accepting the updated policy or changing the account settings within the first month.
Still, the move is sure to irk some of the app’s longtime users.
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One of the upgrades includes sharing your numbers with Facebook Inc.
