Users who don’t get on board with WhatsApp’s terms and conditions will be unable to send or receive messages after May 15. While calls and notifications will continue to work for a short while, this will supposedly only be for a period of a “few weeks.”
WhatsApp first announced the changing privacy policies in January. The changed policy notes that, “As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies.”
At a time when Facebook faces growing skepticism in some quarters, WhatsApp’s changed policies meant many users sought other encrypted messaging tools. The likes of Signal and Telegram got a big uptick in usage. To be clear, the changes do not affect user messages, which are still end-to-end encrypted. The most notable change is that business message data for commercial purposes could be shared with Facebook.
“We’ve heard from so many people how much confusion there is around our recent update,” WhatsApp wrote 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.”
If users want to continue using WhatsApp, they must agree to the new terms. These appear as a popup banner in the app. If they do not agree to the terms, accounts will be listed as inactive. WhatsApp may delete inactive accounts after 120 days.
What do you think about the WhatsApp changes? What is your private messaging app of choice? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: TechCrunch
