These two apps have helped Facebook dominate the social media and messaging space in the last five years. It has also put Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram under the scanner. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit against Facebook over antitrust, anti-competitive policies. The regulatory heat makes the timing of this update interesting. How does one read the update in the context of the regulatory scrutiny Facebook faces in the US and EU? WhatsApp’s new privacy policy applies to every country, including the US, and users will have to accept the terms and conditions to continue using the service. Until the Personal Data Protection Bill becomes law, it will be hard to police tech companies on how user data should be processed. So, why doesn’t India get such a setting with extensive controls? Read | Here’s how to move your WhatsApp groups to Signal Interestingly, after the EU antitrust authorities in 2017 fined Facebook 110 million euros for misleading regulators during a 2014 review of the WhatsApp takeover, the social network had told these regulators it technically wasn’t possible to combine WhatsApp data with its other services. Consumers in the EU can even withdraw their consent to WhatsApp for processing of data, thanks to GDPR. While the WhatsApp privacy policy in the EU also talks about data sharing with Facebook, consumers there get a special setting called “Managing and Retaining Your Information”, with which they can rectify, update or erase information that the platform controls. Protection Regulation (GDPR) is one of the strictest in the world and ensures that consumers have the full rights on their data and how that data is processed, and can even demand erasure of information.Īccording to WhatsApp’s own policy for EU, consumers have “the right to access, rectify, port, and erase your information, as well as the right to restrict and object to certain processing of your information.” That’s because the EU has a different privacy policy on any software product compared to the rest of the world. While there is data sharing with Facebook even in the European Union, users there get more control. Your conversations are encrypted, and neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see what is being discussed. If you are the business owner, you could use some of the insights to run ads targeting your customers on Facebook and other services.ĭo my Facebook friends get to know what my WhatsApp contacts are sending me? This could be used to show you ads on Facebook platforms. If you use WhatsApp for a business and have a list of clients, the business on the other side too will see the conversation and know your preferences. So clearly, business messaging, which WhatsApp has been gradually activating across many markets, will ultimately results in advertisements based on preferences you have shown to the business. Using the Shops features on WhatsApp could also open up your preferences for targeted ads on other Facebook products such as Instagram. These labels are already visible when you are communicating with a business, and users will now need to decide whether they want to be in a conversation, the details of which could be used to show them targeted ads. But, WhatsApp says it will “clearly label conversations with businesses that are choosing to use hosting services from Facebook”. WhatsApp has clarified that some “large businesses” might need to use “secure hosting services from Facebook to manage WhatsApp chats with their customers, answer questions, and send helpful information like purchase receipts”.Īnd “whether you communicate with a business by phone, email, or WhatsApp, it can see what you’re saying and may use that information for its own marketing purposes, which may include advertising on Facebook”.
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