WhatsApp has finally reached an agreement with the EU after a recent controversy related to the adoption of a certain change made to its privacy policy in the year 2021.
The news comes after a discussion took place with consumer protection regulators from the EU and the European Commission. This had to do with making it so much easier for respective users to say no to any updates that arose in its terms of service.
The app that is owned by Meta says it wishes to really work hard and explain well that even though such terms were getting rejected, it would go on further to limit the respective terms of service as well.
This brand that’s owned by Meta hopes to explain more clearly when it hopes to reject such terms that would restrict its services. Hence now, users can even dismiss alerts regarding such updates while delaying reviews on the update front too.
The firm has confirmed that it does not wish to share any more personal details on the brands that Meta owns including the likes of Facebook, just for the purpose of advertising. Moreover, it also does not have any intentions of sharing more news with other third parties as confirmed by the Commission today.
In the year 2021, we saw a massive outcry emerge when the firm requested users to share information such as connection data and some transactions that were related to sibling brands including Facebook as a major part of its privacy policy.
There certainly will not be a lot of things changing for users of the app and that means people are now interpreting this as a huge sign that the app may have been involved in sharing texts and phone calls with the Facebook app.
Therefore, it all prompted one massive exodus to fellow archrival messaging services such as Signal and Telegram. Moreover, the firm says it really is trying hard to gain the confidence of its users back that it was not sharing details with other third parties. And that’s when it opted to highlight how everything was end-to-end encrypted.
This backlash led the firm to put a temporary pause on the rollout of its policy as a lot of controversies arose on the matter linked to chat encryption. Meanwhile, when it did make the choice to reintroduce such terms again, it had no choice but to add more clarifications on the subject.
It similarly warned that such services would slowly stop working until the app’s users provided consent that they would be agreeing to it.
It was in January of 2022 that we saw the European Commission get involved in this entire ordeal. It came forward to talk about how it was just wrong and illegal for the company to engage in such behavior. Therefore, it wished the firm would go about explaining more in detail about its business strategy and if it was gaining any form of profit from gaining personal details.
All in all, we’ve asked Meta to issue a comment on the subject as the respective regulating body in the EU says it is going to be working strictly in terms of monitoring what the app is doing to keep its promises regarding future updates.
For now, this is the latest news on this front but we will not be surprised if we saw some more policy changes arising.
If it was not for regulating bodies, social media giants like Meta could force users to consent to a lot of things that they would hardly be aware of and that would just benefit the organization at the cost of others.
Read next: WhatsApp is developing a function to block calls from unidentified numbers
The news comes after a discussion took place with consumer protection regulators from the EU and the European Commission. This had to do with making it so much easier for respective users to say no to any updates that arose in its terms of service.
The app that is owned by Meta says it wishes to really work hard and explain well that even though such terms were getting rejected, it would go on further to limit the respective terms of service as well.
This brand that’s owned by Meta hopes to explain more clearly when it hopes to reject such terms that would restrict its services. Hence now, users can even dismiss alerts regarding such updates while delaying reviews on the update front too.
The firm has confirmed that it does not wish to share any more personal details on the brands that Meta owns including the likes of Facebook, just for the purpose of advertising. Moreover, it also does not have any intentions of sharing more news with other third parties as confirmed by the Commission today.
In the year 2021, we saw a massive outcry emerge when the firm requested users to share information such as connection data and some transactions that were related to sibling brands including Facebook as a major part of its privacy policy.
We welcome WhatsApp's commitments to change its practices to comply with EU rules, informing users better and respecting their choices on contract updates.
— European Commission (@EU_Commission) March 6, 2023
EU consumers have a right to understand what they agree to and what that choice concretely entails.#EU4Consumers
There certainly will not be a lot of things changing for users of the app and that means people are now interpreting this as a huge sign that the app may have been involved in sharing texts and phone calls with the Facebook app.
Therefore, it all prompted one massive exodus to fellow archrival messaging services such as Signal and Telegram. Moreover, the firm says it really is trying hard to gain the confidence of its users back that it was not sharing details with other third parties. And that’s when it opted to highlight how everything was end-to-end encrypted.
This backlash led the firm to put a temporary pause on the rollout of its policy as a lot of controversies arose on the matter linked to chat encryption. Meanwhile, when it did make the choice to reintroduce such terms again, it had no choice but to add more clarifications on the subject.
It similarly warned that such services would slowly stop working until the app’s users provided consent that they would be agreeing to it.
It was in January of 2022 that we saw the European Commission get involved in this entire ordeal. It came forward to talk about how it was just wrong and illegal for the company to engage in such behavior. Therefore, it wished the firm would go about explaining more in detail about its business strategy and if it was gaining any form of profit from gaining personal details.
All in all, we’ve asked Meta to issue a comment on the subject as the respective regulating body in the EU says it is going to be working strictly in terms of monitoring what the app is doing to keep its promises regarding future updates.
For now, this is the latest news on this front but we will not be surprised if we saw some more policy changes arising.
If it was not for regulating bodies, social media giants like Meta could force users to consent to a lot of things that they would hardly be aware of and that would just benefit the organization at the cost of others.
Read next: WhatsApp is developing a function to block calls from unidentified numbers
