After receiving criticism from users for revised privacy terms WhatsApp decided to delay its planned privacy update for 3 months. WhatsApp confirmed that privacy update date is pushed back to May 15 from Feb 8 So, users get more time to understand and analyze their policy.
In January 2021 WhatsApp notified their users about their new option of messaging businesses using their services and about Privacy Policy update. The notification mentions that users have to accept the updated policy by February to access to their accounts.
This notification created misunderstanding in users mind as they thought that WhatsApp is making a huge shift in its Data Sharing practice and would now read their conversation and other details and share it to its parent company Facebook.
This misunderstanding stirs the users around the world because of which people shifted to different messaging service app like Signal and Telegram. Signal became No. 1 App in India this week which is one of the biggest markets for WhatsApp.
Due to such outrage amongst users for the revised privacy policy. What’sApp executive wrote on their company blog to assure their users that the changes are minor and they will always be committed towards their security.
WhatsApp said in a company blog post “WhatsApp was built on a simple idea: what you share with your friends and family stays between you. This means we will always protect your personal conversations with end-to-end encryption so that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see these private messages. It’s why we don’t keep logs of whom everyone’s messaging or calling. We also can’t see your shared location and we don’t share your contacts with Facebook.”
After giving the explanation company said “We’re also going to do a lot more to clear up the misinformation around how privacy and security work on
WhatsApp. We’ll then go to people gradually to review the policy at their own pace before new business options are available on May 15.”
