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WhatsApp plans to reintroduce the updated privacy policy that sparked an attack against the Facebook-owned messaging app. The company said it would notify users of the new privacy policy “in the coming weeks” and provide more information about the changes before requiring users to agree to the new terms.
“In the coming weeks we will be displaying a banner in WhatsApp providing more information that people can read at their own pace,” WhatsApp wrote in a blog post. “We’ve also included more information to try and address the concerns we’re hearing. Eventually, we’ll start reminding people to review and agree to these updates to keep using WhatsApp. “
The privacy policy is the same as that introduced by the company, a rollout amid growing backlash. A spokesperson for WhatsApp has confirmed that users will eventually have to agree to the new terms by May 15, when the new policy takes effect.
The updated privacy policy responds to Facebook’s recent surge in commerce. For WhatsApp, this has meant an expansion of the app’s tools and the addition of new ones to the app. The new terms more explicitly address the role Facebook plays in enabling these interactions. As The New York Times last month, this could lead to interactions with businesses on WhatsApp influencing the ads you see on Facebook.
But the fact that WhatsApp pushed the changes on users without warning, and the general distrust of Facebook, turned out to be a perfect recipe for spreading “”. Many users interpreted the update as strengthening WhatsApp users to share more data with Facebook without the ability to unsubscribe. (Again, like The temperature noted in January, the reality is that Facebook already had the ability to collect “a lot of information about what people are doing on WhatsApp”).
It is less clear whether the new message will be enough to repair the damage already done. The fallout has led to renewed interest in alternative messaging apps and Telegram. In its blog post Thursday, WhatsApp discussed the renewed interest in competing services, stating that “we understand that some people may view other apps.” But the company also hinted that these services may be less “reliable and secure” than WhatsApp.
“Other apps say they’re better because they know even less information than WhatsApp,” the company said. “We believe people are looking for apps that are both reliable and secure, even if that requires WhatsApp to have limited data.”
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