WhatsApp Delays new privacy policy announced earlier this month after confusion and user backlash forced the messaging service to better explain what data it collects and how it shares that information with the parent company, Facebook Inc. “We’ve heard from so many people how much confusion there is around our recent WhatsApp New Privacy Policy update,” the company wrote Friday in a blog post. “There’s been a lot of misinformation causing concern and we want to help everyone understand our principles and the facts.”
WhatsApp had asked users to agree to the new policy by Feb. 8 but has pushed that deadline to May 15 while it further explains the changes. WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, meaning only a message’s sender and the recipient can read it, and those messages are not stored on Facebook servers. But WhatsApp is also pushing aggressively into messaging for businesses.
Thank you to everyone who’s reached out. We’re still working to counter any confusion by communicating directly with @WhatsApp users. No one will have their account suspended or deleted on Feb 8 and we’ll be moving back our business plans until after May – https://t.co/H3DeSS0QfO
— WhatsApp (@WhatsApp) January 15, 2021
The WhatsApp updated privacy policy was intended to alert users that some businesses would soon be using Facebook-owned servers to store messages with consumers. Facebook has said that it will not access those messages for any type of ad targeting, but the language in the updated terms of service concerned many users who worried that Facebook would suddenly see their private messages.
“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 who everyone”s messaging or calling. We also can’t see your shared location and we don’t share your contacts with Facebook,” it said further.
