WhatsApp New Privacy Policy Postponed Until May 15
WhatsApp surprisingly postpones the announced changes to terms and conditions to May 15. The background is that the company now wants to counteract the “confusion” that has arisen in relation to the suspected data exchange with Facebook.
Buckled?
The outcry among WhatsApp users was actually great: WhatsApp made headlines with a change to the terms and conditions initially planned for February 8. Numerous media reports that had highlighted the addition of new, broader wording in the privacy policy, have now induced WhatsApp to make changes again. However, the company attaches importance to emphasizing that they want to tackle the confusion surrounding the new wording in the terms and conditions. Some passages were wrongly interpreted in such a way that they imply a mandatory data transfer to Facebook, which is not the case. WhatsApp didn’t want to rewrite something like that.
WhatsApp has not caved in but just wants to better explain what you are actually planning and want to allow yourself with the terms and conditions. WhatsApp now says it will take advantage of the three-month delay before the terms and conditions go into effect to better communicate both the changes in its new policy and its longstanding privacy practices around personal chats, location sharing and other sensitive data. “We are now moving the date on which people will be asked to review and accept the terms and conditions,” says the blog post.
No change in the EU
WhatsApp had not grown tired of emphasizing over and over again in the last few days that the proposed changes to the terms and conditions do not provide for data exchange with Facebook, as was so often reported. A spokesman for Facebook also spoke to WinFuture and announced that the changes reported do not even apply to EU citizens. It said: “We would like to point out that this is not the case in the EU: In the EU there is a separate privacy policy update, according to which the data of WhatsApp users are still not shared with Facebook.”
WhatsApp continues: “There are no changes to the data transfer practices of WhatsApp in the European region (including the UK) resulting from the updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. For the avoidance of doubt, WhatsApp continues to apply no WhatsApp user data from the European region shares with Facebook so that Facebook can use this data to improve its products or advertising.
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