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WhatsApp: Let Us Share Your Data With Facebook or Else

posted by requerdanos on Saturday January 09 2021, @05:50PM   

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

WhatsApp: Let us share your data with Facebook or else:

In a surprise move, WhatsApp recently gave many of its users a difficult choice: they could either accept a revised privacy policy that explicit[sic] allowed the service to share information with parent company Facebook by February 8th, or decline and risk not being able to use the service at all.

[...] Upon further inspection, the updated policy makes clear that data collected by WhatsApp — including user phone numbers, "transaction data, service-related information, information on how you interact with others (including businesses) when using our Services , mobile device information, your IP address" and more are subject to be shared with other properties owned and controlled by Facebook.

"As part of the Facebook Companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information (see here) with, the other Facebook Companies," the updated privacy policy reads. "We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them, to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services and their offerings, including the Facebook Company Products."

[...] The shift appears to be a dramatic about-face for WhatsApp, a company that contends "respect for your privacy" is coded into its DNA and made end-to-end encryption standard across all chats as of 2016.

Additionally, Signal sees surge in new signups after boost from Elon Musk and WhatsApp controversy:

Encrypted messaging app Signal says it's seeing a swell of new users signing up for the platform, so much so that the company is seeing delays in phone number verifications of new accounts across multiple cell providers.

As for what or who is responsible for so many new users interested in trying the platform, which is operated by the nonprofit Signal Foundation, there are two likely culprits: Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Signal competitor WhatsApp.

[...] WhatsApp has outlined a new privacy policy going into effect next month that no longer includes language indicating it will allow users to opt out of data sharing with parent company Facebook. Instead, the new policy expressly outlines how WhatsApp will share data (stuff like your phone number, profile name, and address book info) with Facebook.

Two anonymous submitters also pointed us to this story.

Oculus to Begin Requiring Facebook Accounts to Use VR Headsets

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Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2  Original Submission #3 

• Re:So, *what's up*? What will be done about it? Re:So, *what's up*? What will be done about it? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @11:39AM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @11:39AM (#1097843)

  SMS is unreliable by design: messages may or may not be delivered. Sometimes they just disappear, and someone gets mad at you because you ignored their message or didn't do what it said ("I told you to come at 7, not 6! Didn't you get my message that I was going to be late?" "No, I never got that. Look. See?") Chat apps don't have this problem: messages are verified received, and if there's a network problem it retries until it receives verification.

  I worked at a company whose business ran on sending and receiving SMSes. I can tell you for a fact that, even in the mid-2000s, one could get a message-received-by-device "receipt" from SMSes. This could be switched on in the settings of many/all phones.

  I also know that retrying sending of SMSes is the responsibility of the service provider passing on the SMS. When SMSes could not be delivered, our service would get "failed to deliver" responses sometimes up to 24 hours later. Don't blame the technology for shitty implementation by shitty US phone companies.

  SMS is tied to your phone number. What happens when you change your phone number? All your friends now can't text you, until you notify them all, separately, of your new number. What an utterly ridiculous and obsolete limitation. In an age when people don't even memorize phone numbers any more, why would you tie someone's identity to a short number that gets changed from time to time?

  Why don't you ask WhatsApp and Signal, since their platforms are built around the exact same identifier?

  Parent

• Re:So, *what's up*? What will be done about it? (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 11 2021, @07:08PM

  by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday January 11 2021, @07:08PM (#1098484)

  I also know that retrying sending of SMSes is the responsibility of the service provider passing on the SMS. When SMSes could not be delivered, our service would get "failed to deliver" responses sometimes up to 24 hours later. Don't blame the technology for shitty implementation by shitty US phone companies.

  It doesn't matter if the formal specification isn't that bad; the only thing end-users see is the implementation by the shitty phone companies, so that's the only thing that effectively exists. Whoever's to blame, SMS sucks, and that's the main reason these message apps were invented.

  Why don't you ask WhatsApp and Signal, since their platforms are built around the exact same identifier?

  Interesting; I've never actually used either one. I use apps that have actual accounts and logins and are separate from my phone number, and which I can also use from my PC. If that's how these two apps work, then I'll steer clear because that's the same stupidity that plagues SMS: how the hell am I supposed to use it when I'm outside the US and using a different SIM card?

  Parent