WhatsApp is the biggest message sharing app on the planet. Roughly half the people in India use it, which already accounts for over 450 million customers. While that is a lot, it’s less than a quarter of WhatsApp’s two billion users. As such, anything they do gets a lot of attention, even more since they were bought by Facebook a while back.
This was demonstrated recently when they released some brand new terms of service (ToS) that seemed to go very much against their previous reputation for privacy. One of the major issues in the ToS is the requirement to allow WhatsApp to share your data with Facebook. Also upsetting to many people was the stark either/or ultimatum: accept the terms or you will no longer be able to use the app. Since we value data privacy around the halls of TARTLE we’ve been following the issue closely and have addressed developments in this space a couple of times already.
As you might imagine, WhatsApp has taken a lot of flak for the new ToS and are now in full damage control mode. For one, it looks like the person responsible for the ‘accept our terms or else’ messaging has been fired. Yet, millions of users have switched to other messaging apps. After Elon Musk tweeted an endorsement, Signal downloads went through the rough. Telegram also has seen a surge of 25 million users while other, smaller apps like Viber are publically cutting ties with Facebook.
So what is WhatsApp doing to staunch the bleeding? Other than firing someone for their lousy PR skills, WhatsApp and Facebook representatives are out in force trying to clarify the new ToS. The biggest clarification they are trying to make is that there is no change to messages between friends and family. Those are still completely private. According to them, the only privacy change relates to messages to businesses, which of course is completely optional. That’s great and all, but one does wonder why they didn’t just say that clearly at the beginning. When the backlash first started they just issued ‘no comment’ statements. Why did it take so much time to craft a real statement if everything is fine? At the very least, their messaging is still in poor shape.
Moving on, the official statements also clarify that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can actually view your private messages. What comes next is more interesting. They say that their plan for messaging integration is still underway, which means that Facebook is still trying to figure out how to bring the WhatsApp people into their bigger monetization strategy. Which, in all honesty likely means the ToS for WhatsApp will be going through another revision or two in the near future. Or it will just get merged with the very profitable Messenger.
For now though, they aren’t listening in or encouraging others to do so, nor are they keeping logs of your contacts or location. Which is very good since most of the cellphone and landline companies do exactly that. This is one of the high points in WhatApp’s recent statements. They rightly consider it a privacy and security risk to keep those kinds of records. Just having them, means you need more servers which is both an expense and a potential path for a hacker. And of course losing control of such records would completely undermine trust in the company.
Going deeper into the statement there are a few cleverly worded statements such as how WhatsApp doesn’t share any group data for ad purposes, which implies that they are sharing data across apps for some purposes. It may also be that they don’t even need to share all that group data to get what they need. One also wonders if this contradicts the above assurances about maintaining the privacy of private messages.
This is why TARTLE is so needed. We don’t play games, we tell why we exist and what our intentions are upfront and in simple language. You sign up with us and we won’t even share your data with ourselves, much less a third party. It goes only where you want when you want it to. That’s it. Your privacy is worth protecting and TARTLE wants to help you do that.
What’s your data worth?
If you were asked what the most popular messaging app in the world is, what would you say? Messenger? Instagram? Discord? All wrong. In fact, if you answered anything other than WhatsApp you would be wrong. WhatsApp rose quickly to become the biggest kid on the messaging block thanks to its compatibility with Android (by far the most popular smartphone platform in the world) and the fact it allows users to make free calls and texts as long as there is a wifi connection. What really sets this app apart from the rest though is that it didn’t gather or sell any of your data. Its developers prided themselves on the fact they didn’t know and didn’t want to know anything about their users.
Sadly, that started to change in 2014 when Facebook bought the company. Initially, the house that Zuck built promised that it would make no changes to the terms of service for WhatsApp. However, recently, they did change them, making it mandatory for users to share their WhatsApp data with Facebook. Users are faced with two choices, accept the new terms or lose their account. At least they are upfront about the choice. So there’s that.
One wonders though, why are they making users make this decision now? What is driving them to alter one of their primary features? To put it another way, why do they want our data now? Looking at the updated agreement, there is a hint. One of the things WhatsApp says they will be using that data for is to provide personalized ads within the app, no doubt cross-referencing data from Facebook and Instagram. To be fair, they likely realized they needed to actually make some money with WhatsApp and putting a couple of ads on the screen is an easy way to do that. However, if they go the route of Skype and other apps and start recording and transcribing calls without consent, that will be sure to cause a backlash. Not that they are doing that right now. Hopefully, they stay away from that kind of privacy violation as it would completely destroy the original vision of WhatsApp’s creators.
So why would we speculate as to their intentions? Because the new terms of service are unfortunately pretty opaque. Amongst the data they’ll be collecting now is “how we interact with others”. What does that mean? Anytime there is ambiguity like that, it invites suspicion. Wouldn’t it be better if they just came right out and said everything they plan on doing with your data? Even if people weren’t terribly likely to approve. At least if Facebook told you they were planning on selling your information to the NSA at least you could respect their honesty and have a real choice in the matter. Instead, you have a bunch of vague terminologies that would frustrate a corporate lawyer.
Let’s take another example. They’ll also be collecting users’ IP addresses, location data, and more besides. But don’t worry! “Other data” will be collected only with consent. One wonders what’s meant by “other data” or even what could be meant given how much data they already tell you that they’ll be collecting. The fact they then emphasize they won’t be asking for your name or email as a way to put users’ concerns at ease is just plain laughable. WhatsApp is telling people they are taking every bit of data necessary to figure out who you are. Who cares if you give them your name? They can figure it out, along with where you had lunch based on the data that is getting collected.
Now, it might seem like we’re bashing WhatsApp. And we are a little bit, but it’s in the hopes that they will hear the concerns of users around the world and respond in a positive way that preserves user privacy while still allowing them to make a buck and keep the lights on. Fortunately, we at TARTLE are experts on how to handle user privacy and address the concerns of users and companies alike. We would love to sit down with Facebook or any other company struggling to find the sweet spot on this issue and find solutions that will keep everyone happy.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and join the TARTLE Marketplace with this link here.
