From the point of view of consumer advocates, WhatsApp has been exerting undue pressure on users to accept the new terms and conditions with persistent, recurring, and intrusive notifications for months. Now they are taking action against it at the EU level.
Multiple violations of EU consumer rights: with this clear accusation, the European Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC) and eight of its members – from Romania, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia and France, and two associations from Greece – filed a complaint against WhatsApp with the European Commission.
“WhatsApp has been bombarding users for months with aggressive and persistent pop-up messages to force them to accept its new terms of use and privacy policy,” said BEUC Director General Monique Goyens. The type, timing, and content of the message exert “undue pressure” on users, according to the consumer advocates, which in turn constitutes a clear interference with freedom of choice. Legally, they see this as a violation of the EU Directive on Unfair Commercial Practices.
From the point of view of the consumer protection agency, it is also basically impossible for normal consumers to get a clear understanding of what is involved in their consent in terms of sharing and evaluating their own data with Facebook and third parties. WhatsApp remains deliberately vague here and has deliberately failed to “explain in simple and understandable language the nature of the changes.”
Companies are required under EU consumer protection law to communicate contractual terms transparently and clearly. “We, therefore, call on the authorities to take swift action against WhatsApp to ensure that it respects consumer rights,” BEUC said.
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