WhatsApp is postponing a planned change to its terms of use now that users fear parent company Facebook will receive too much privacy-sensitive information. According to WhatsApp, there are many misunderstandings among users about the changes and more time is needed to explain.
Users had to agree to the new terms on February 8, otherwise they would lose access to their accounts with WhatsApp, it was announced earlier this month. Now that deadline has been postponed to May 15.
Users have recently seen a pop-up message saying, “Businesses can use Facebook hosted services to store and manage WhatsApp chats.” This concerns data such as time, location and to whom you send messages.
Many people think that Whatsapp collects personal information and sells it to companies that can use it to create personalized advertisements, for example. Parent company Facebook does not have a good reputation with many in that regard.
Tesla boss Elon Musk and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, among others, earlier this month encouraged their many millions of followers via social media to install alternatives to WhatsApp, such as Signal.
In the Netherlands, this chat app is now the most popular free app in both the App Store (Apple) and Google Play (Android). Another chat app – Telegram – also gained 25 million users in 72 hours.
WhatsApp cannot share user information with Facebook in Europe because this is not allowed due to European privacy regulations. The creators of the wildly popular app say the planned update will not change regular chats between people.
