WhatsApp ToS Data Sharing Clarity

Speaker 1 (00:07):

Welcome to TARTLE Cast with your hosts Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path.

Alexander McCaig (00:18):

What's up?

Jason Rigby (00:18):

What's up?

Alexander McCaig (00:28):

Same stupid joke every time.

Jason Rigby (00:30):

Every time, yeah. But this is part [do 00:00:32] .

Alexander McCaig (00:32):

Yeah, this is [inaudible 00:00:33].

Jason Rigby (00:38):

On WhatsApp. And a lot of people don't realize this is the largest messaging app in the world. Larger than any other iMessage, any other.

Alexander McCaig (00:49):

Just in India, every day, how many was it?

Jason Rigby (00:52):

Yeah, I have it right here. I want to make sure. I think it's 450... No, it says right here. In India alone, 459 million people actively use the app daily.

Alexander McCaig (01:02):

That's crazy.

Jason Rigby (01:03):

459 million.

Alexander McCaig (01:04):

That's huge. That's almost half of the Indian population.

Jason Rigby (01:08):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (01:08):

Which tells me that half of that nation has... [crosstalk 00:01:13] smartphones. Good.

Jason Rigby (01:17):

Yeah. That's good for us.

Alexander McCaig (01:19):

Yeah. So we all know there was a lot of backlash the other day when the very polarizing terms and conditions came out from WhatsApp with their change. That if you do not accept this, you frankly can't use the app, but they were very unclear about what the data collection actually was and how that was working.

Jason Rigby (01:40):

Yeah. I'm pretty sure that person's no longer working with WhatsApp.

Alexander McCaig (01:43):

Yeah.

Jason Rigby (01:44):

The terms and privacy policy, which they put out. Well, it was kind of startling because I use WhatsApp because in our company, we have global employees.

Alexander McCaig (01:55):

Yes we do.

Jason Rigby (01:57):

So I'm talking through WhatsApp and when I go on there, all of a sudden it popped up and it said, sign our new data privacy agreement or whatever.

Alexander McCaig (02:07):

Right.

Jason Rigby (02:08):

Right on the text. And I think it just kind of startled everyone. So then, you get a couple people on Twitter and then they begin to talking about it and then it gained some traction. Next thing you know, you get one man-

Alexander McCaig (02:19):

[inaudible 00:02:19] likes to launch rockets into space.

Jason Rigby (02:22):

Yes, Mr. Musk. And he turns around and says, "Use Signal" the same day.

Alexander McCaig (02:27):

And you know I've been a proponent for signal for a while.

Jason Rigby (02:31):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (02:32):

And then [crosstalk 00:02:32] and I wasn't on Twitter and I'm like, "Why Signal crashed?" I'm like, "Ah." So many people are dumping over on the Signal after he says one word about it.

Jason Rigby (02:39):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (02:40):

The pied piper comes out and says one word about it. Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Jason Rigby (02:49):

Yeah. Telegram, which is another app, a Russian-based app that a lot of people use. In three days, they had 25 million signups.

Alexander McCaig (02:57):

Yeah.

Jason Rigby (02:57):

They've announced that same-

Alexander McCaig (02:58):

It's funny how people shift.

Jason Rigby (03:00):

So I could imagine it was probably even more with Signal. So WhatsApp had some... You know Viber? Have you ever heard of Viber?

Alexander McCaig (03:09):

Viber?

Jason Rigby (03:09):

Yeah. V-I-B-E-R. That's a very another popular. It's probably third of the messaging app. They said this, Viber tweeted this. It's got like a pinkish red-

Alexander McCaig (03:22):

Viber.

Jason Rigby (03:23):

V-I-B-E-R.

Alexander McCaig (03:24):

Yeah, I'm on it. Oh, I see it. Yeah, I know Viber.

Jason Rigby (03:26):

I think they use this as a marketing ploy, but they may be a great company. I don't know. "Viber cut all its business ties with Facebook last year to protect their users' privacy, providing a secure and private messaging and calling platform that has always been a top pride for us. And this will never change." and then, Viber put hashtag privacy matters.

Alexander McCaig (03:43):

Wait, they're all bashing on Facebook. You chose to do business with them in the first place. Hold on a second, don't act like you got into business with them and didn't know what was going on. That's the most foolest thing. After Cambridge Analytica, you should have been like, "Whoa, hold on a second." Not like last year, 2019.

Jason Rigby (04:07):

Yeah. So WhatsApp has two billion users and they've been growing like crazy. And then all of a sudden, this new privacy terms hits, confusion hits because that's what they said. Everybody was, had a level of confusion. So this is where you have to make sure your messaging is clear.

Alexander McCaig (04:24):

Yeah.

Jason Rigby (04:24):

And Facebook being so large, you think that-

Alexander McCaig (04:28):

Why would you be so opaque when it comes to security and privacy? That's the one thing you should be clear on. Imagine if you go to [debrief 00:04:41] , I don't know. A couple of generals.

Jason Rigby (04:42):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (04:42):

And they're like, "Well, what's the risk profile?" "Ah, You know? Not bad." "So can we go in there?" "Yeah, you could." "Do we send our troops in or do we not?" Do you know what I mean?

Jason Rigby (04:56):

Yeah, exactly.

Alexander McCaig (04:57):

What is the risk?

Jason Rigby (04:58):

I think it's this whole attitude of being complacent in being transparent. So these data companies, and you've seen this in advertising companies and data companies and tech companies, they've come with this hierarchy of, "We know more than you. You're a user. We're at this level." So they talk down to people-

Alexander McCaig (05:24):

"Yeah, we'll decide what your privacy [crosstalk 00:05:26]-

Jason Rigby (05:25):

And so when you're ambiguous and you're talking down to people, then it becomes this. And so WhatsApp, [Kate 00:05:35].

Alexander McCaig (05:35):

Yeah.

Jason Rigby (05:36):

If you want to call it. One of the great Exodus.

Alexander McCaig (05:40):

What Kate?

Jason Rigby (05:42):

The great Exodus from WhatsApp. So one guy tweets and he got a bunch of people. Yeah. He said, "There's a lot of misinformation about the WhatsApp TOS right now. The policy update does not affect the privacy of your message with friends or family in any way. The changes are related to messaging a business on WhatsApp, which is optional."

Alexander McCaig (06:01):

Why is it that you guys had to say that twice?

Jason Rigby (06:04):

Yeah. That's the thing that gets me. And then WhatsApp makes a [inaudible 00:06:09] they come out and they say this. First, they say, "No comment. No statement." And then they come out and they make a statement-

Alexander McCaig (06:16):

I can make a statement right now. I'm so sure about what I'm doing that I can make the statement right now. Own up to the fact that you screwed up. They didn't even own up to that fact. They're like, "Oh, we just do this." You screwed up in how you delivered your message.

Jason Rigby (06:30):

Yeah. And just tell people that. [crosstalk 00:06:31].

Alexander McCaig (06:30):

They'll appreciate it. Everybody likes it when you're like, "Oh, thank you for being honest."

Jason Rigby (06:36):

Everybody but Sinéad O'Connor. She literally ruined her career on Saturday Night Live. I love her music.

Alexander McCaig (06:45):

Dude, I was just watching-

Jason Rigby (06:47):

Do you remember what she did on Saturday Night Live?

Alexander McCaig (06:49):

No. The only ones I watched were the Chris Farley ones.

Jason Rigby (06:51):

So she, on Saturday Night Live, in the height of her career, decided to rip a picture up of the pope and she's Irish. So you know what being Irish is about. And we have a lot of people from Ireland listen to our show. So that was extremely controversial. But it literally, for the rest of her life... She's comes out with songs and stuff still now and there's nothing. There's always these moments. And I think these companies are so afraid of it, especially now with the culture, this cancel culture and everything that's going on now. There's always these moments where you're like, "Should I do this? Should I not?" It's like, Elon Musk, but he made fun of it and then recovered with the window broke. [crosstalk 00:07:33]

Alexander McCaig (07:32):

Yeah. Just be lighthearted about it because everyone's all amped-up about it. It's supposed to be bulletproof.

Jason Rigby (07:38):

And the windows were shattered.

Alexander McCaig (07:40):

Yeah. We're going to work on that.

Jason Rigby (07:41):

Yeah, exactly. Hey, we're engineers. We're at the cutting edge. These things are going to happen.

Alexander McCaig (07:46):

Yeah.

Jason Rigby (07:47):

So here's an explanation by WhatsApp.

Alexander McCaig (07:49):

Is that a pope cancel culture. I'm looking at the picture right now.

Jason Rigby (07:51):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (07:51):

Yeah.

Jason Rigby (07:55):

I mean, we look at it and we're like, "Oh." but that's a huge issue in Ireland. Catholics and Protestants have been fighting for how long?

Alexander McCaig (08:04):

They're still fighting?

Jason Rigby (08:06):

Yes.

Alexander McCaig (08:07):

Well, I mean, how long have... I don't want to get into religious battles.

Jason Rigby (08:11):

Yeah. We won't touch that.

Alexander McCaig (08:13):

How does that go into our big seven? Oh, number four, global peace.

Jason Rigby (08:15):

Yeah, global peace. Let's have global peace. What WhatsApp said, "This update includes changes related to messaging a business on WhatsApp, which is optional and provides further transparency about how we collect and use data. We can't see your private messages or hear your calls and neither can Facebook." See, this person that wrote this statement, this attorney, the point-blank statements like this, view their Facebook. You know how they're like, "We." They're claiming ownership.

Alexander McCaig (08:45):

Yes.

Jason Rigby (08:45):

This guy should have been the first one. Hire this guy [crosstalk 00:08:47]

Alexander McCaig (08:47):

I don't know why they didn't have [crosstalk 00:08:48] this guy right in the first place. Yeah. Bring him back. Actually give him double the salary.

Jason Rigby (08:52):

Yes.

Alexander McCaig (08:52):

Get the old guy's salary that you fired and double his.

Jason Rigby (08:55):

And he says this too, "Neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can read your messages or hear your calls with your friends, family, and co-workers on WhatsApp." So he said it twice. He made a statement. This is a true-

Alexander McCaig (09:07):

Wait. Hold on. "Friends, family, co-workers"?

Jason Rigby (09:10):

And co-workers.

Alexander McCaig (09:11):

What about my enemies?

Jason Rigby (09:12):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (09:13):

Shame on them.

Jason Rigby (09:14):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (09:16):

What about my enemies?

Jason Rigby (09:16):

I keep them closer that's why we're so close.

Alexander McCaig (09:20):

Definitely watching that. Yeah.

Jason Rigby (09:23):

So it's interesting to me because everybody knows the track record of Facebook and their lack of transparency with data usage.

Alexander McCaig (09:33):

Yeah.

Jason Rigby (09:33):

I mean, what you brought up, Cambridge. But I think one of the things, the IDFA, which we talked about, which sounds like [crosstalk 00:09:40] That's Apple's coming update and then what apps are tracking your data and how they're tracking your data. Apple is cracking down on that. Can I give you an Apple conspiracy theory for everyone?

Alexander McCaig (09:52):

Oh, this is fun.

Jason Rigby (09:54):

My marketing brain is like, "Oh, okay." You know this with TARTLE, Apple's always been about having a closed ecosystem. Here's my thought process, if they close the ecosystem even harder and there's no app showing anywhere and then they turn around and come up with Apple ads.

Alexander McCaig (10:14):

Yeah. You know what they're doing.

Jason Rigby (10:16):

To me, that would seem like, I mean people-

Alexander McCaig (10:18):

It's called cornering the market.

Jason Rigby (10:20):

Yeah. So I mean, how many companies would love to talk to somebody that's on an Apple phone because they know that they will spend money and how much would they pay for Apple ads?

Alexander McCaig (10:30):

Well, it's because they wasted so much money on the Apple phone anyway.

Jason Rigby (10:32):

So if I'm Apple, I would cut everybody off and say, "Well, you need to go on to my like Google ads. You need to go on there and run ads through my way."

Alexander McCaig (10:41):

And then your issue with that too is how's the monetization going to work for those developers?

Jason Rigby (10:47):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (10:47):

They have a reason they make those apps just so they can put ads on them. What are they going to do? How does that affect-

Jason Rigby (10:52):

Well, that's the whole big deal. I know everybody seems to be really upset about it. "Facebook needs to update its permissions in WhatsApp to facilitate in broader messaging integration plan, which is still in progress." So here's the backside of it, they've admitted that their messaging integration plan with Facebook is still in process because they're still trying to figure out a way to get the WhatsApp people to be able to... And I get it. I mean, if I had-

Alexander McCaig (11:19):

Does Facebook Messenger analyze your stuff?

Jason Rigby (11:22):

Yeah. It probably does. [Crosstalk 00:11:23].

Alexander McCaig (11:23):

That's probably the issue. They're like, "Okay. So now we screwed up of WhatsApp. How do we now combine both of these?" And they're like, "Oh. We're making so much money off of Facebook Messenger."

Jason Rigby (11:32):

Yeah. Let's get the ads on WhatsApp. I mean, you can serve ads on WhatsApp right now.

Alexander McCaig (11:36):

Yeah.

Jason Rigby (11:39):

So they're not worried that [inaudible 00:11:40] Facebook says it's not going to hurt them in the long run. And the rise in popularity of the other apps with Trump, IDFA, Elon, Musk, all these people. I don't like to put Trump and Musk in the same sentence, but I had to. But you know, everybody's with this paranoia. We have this craziness of where we're so divisive. And You mentioned unity, which I love.

Alexander McCaig (12:04):

There's nothing unifying about what's going on with that.

Jason Rigby (12:07):

No.

Alexander McCaig (12:11):

I can't. I'm trying to maintain calm [inaudible 00:12:16] getting so fired up on these episodes.

Jason Rigby (12:18):

I know. And I did a heavy one [crosstalk 00:12:21] I'm trying to get your blood go-

Alexander McCaig (12:23):

I'm trying to relax you know-

Jason Rigby (12:25):

Have some coffee.

Alexander McCaig (12:25):

Yeah. Thank you.

Jason Rigby (12:27):

So this is from whatsapp.com. It's frequently asked questions because they updated it. So let's get into these real quick. The privacy and security of your personal messaging. This is what they're saying, "We can't see your personal messages or hear your calls, and neither can Facebook: Neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can read your message or hear calls with your friends, family, and co-workers on WhatsApp. Whatever you share, it stays between you." This is what Facebook's writing, "That's because your personal message are protected by end-to-end encryption. We will never weaken the security and we clearly label each chat so you know our commitment." which I showed you that. We opened up WhatsApp-

Alexander McCaig (13:00):

You just showed me that update this morning. Yeah.

Jason Rigby (13:02):

And then it said, "Learn more about WhatsApp security here." and you can click on that.

Alexander McCaig (13:05):

Very good.

Jason Rigby (13:06):

Next one was, "We don't keep logs of who everyone is messaging or calling." So they're making it more clear. "While traditional mobile carriers and operators store this information." which people don't realize that.

Alexander McCaig (13:17):

This is how the DEA gets hold of all your info, right? They know your IMEI number, Mac addresses, how many IP points that cell phones touch and which tower is hitting, and then who owns the accounts of that cell phone.

Jason Rigby (13:30):

I see this, like you said, they need to give this guy double salary because I guarantee you, it's the same person who wrote this. Listen to this part. This is great: "We believe that keeping these records for two billion users would be both a privacy and security risk and we don't do it." And "we don't do it." Do you see how it's great, those statements are?

Alexander McCaig (13:47):

It's very specific.

Jason Rigby (13:49):

Yeah. And I liked that they included... See, this is where I like when a company is honest because they're saying for us. Yeah, privacy for you, but for us, it's a security risk [crosstalk 00:13:59] and it's not worth keeping the logs.

Alexander McCaig (14:00):

I say this all the time. It's easier for TARTLE never to look at, touch your data and have you facilitate the management of all of it because it's less of a liability on our end.

Jason Rigby (14:09):

I know, but-

Alexander McCaig (14:10):

We, it's easier for us to just keep it locked down and not have us manipulating or tracking anything.

Jason Rigby (14:14):

Yeah. I mean, it's just not cost-effective for them to keep the logs.

Alexander McCaig (14:17):

It's not cost effective, it lowers our risk and it lowers the risk for the end user.

Jason Rigby (14:20):

Yes. tartle.co [crosstalk 00:14:22].

Alexander McCaig (14:21):

tartle.co. If you ever heard of it, sign up. I don't know. We're only at a hundred and something episode here.

Jason Rigby (14:27):

"We can't see your shared location and neither can Facebook." So this is interesting. I'm wondering if they're saying that through Facebook or if they're saying only when you're on the WhatsApp app. It's got to be only when you're on the WhatsApp-

Alexander McCaig (14:39):

Say that again.

Jason Rigby (14:40):

"We can't see your shared location and neither can Facebook."

Alexander McCaig (14:43):

Yeah. What they're saying is because Facebook owns WhatsApp, they're saying, "Oh, can Facebook see what's going on in this application?" No, it seems to be separate from-

Jason Rigby (14:51):

Because they could say, "WhatsApp can't see your location, but Facebook does."

Alexander McCaig (14:55):

Yeah, correct.

Jason Rigby (14:56):

And they say this, "When you share your location with someone on WhatsApp, your location is protected by end-to-end encryption, which means no one can see your location except the people you share it with."

Alexander McCaig (15:05):

Yeah. And the satellite that gave the location.

Jason Rigby (15:08):

"When you give us permission," so this is really good too, "we access only the phone numbers from your address book to make messaging fast and reliable, and we don't share your contact lists with other apps Facebook offers." Did they share that to Facebook? They didn't say that. The contacts. You see what I'm saying?

Alexander McCaig (15:26):

Yeah, "with other apps Facebook offers."

Jason Rigby (15:28):

Yes.

Alexander McCaig (15:28):

He didn't say you don't share it with Facebook though.

Jason Rigby (15:30):

Yeah, exactly.

Alexander McCaig (15:31):

Because they're trying to pair contacts together.

Jason Rigby (15:32):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (15:32):

There are some things that are leaching over.

Jason Rigby (15:34):

Yeah, there has to be-

Alexander McCaig (15:35):

There's some cross-pollination going on.

Jason Rigby (15:38):

Groups remain private because you can do like groups. So you could have all your friends and family and send out like a group text.

Alexander McCaig (15:45):

Yeah.

Jason Rigby (15:46):

"We use group membership to deliver messages and to protect our service from spam and abuse. We don't share this data with Facebook for ads purposes." So they're still sharing the group it says, but they're not for ads purpose. They say, "Again, these personal chats are end-to-end encrypted so we can't see their content."

Alexander McCaig (16:00):

So it's interesting. They must have something well-written in their algorithm where they don't need this extra content. They just need the group.

Jason Rigby (16:07):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (16:08):

Because through that group gives them enough information to pinpoint something else on the backend on Facebook.

Jason Rigby (16:13):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (16:13):

Where they can still do some sort of delivery.

Jason Rigby (16:15):

And we're almost done, but we're going to get to a real important part. Not right now, but here in a little bit. [crosstalk 00:16:19]

Alexander McCaig (16:19):

I'm thinking like, a Sinéad O'Connor scene, we have her standing there ripping a WhatsApp picture.

Jason Rigby (16:27):

"You can set your messages to disappear: For additional privacy, you can choose to set your message" and I know Snapchat does that too and they disappear. And then this is interesting, "You can download your data: You can download and see what information we have on your account right from within the app." We need to make sure TARTLE has WhatsApp.

Alexander McCaig (16:42):

Yeah. I guess we're going to link up WhatsApp on TARTLE so that you can sell any part-

Jason Rigby (16:48):

To the 429 million users in India, [crosstalk 00:16:52] earn some money from-

Alexander McCaig (16:52):

What about the 2 billion they have?

Jason Rigby (16:54):

Yeah, exactly.

Alexander McCaig (16:56):

Using WhatsApp every day? Why don't you start selling some of that data?

Jason Rigby (17:00):

So here's the clarification of the business messaging that just seems to be the issue, "Every day, millions of people around the world communicate securely with businesses of all sizes on WhatsApp. We want to make this easier and better if you choose to message with businesses. We will always be clear within WhatsApp when you are communicating with any business that uses these features." Because I know there's a lot of global businesses where they're selling and so they want to talk to their customers, they want to send out automated texts to WhatsApp-

Alexander McCaig (17:24):

And they probably can't guarantee what the business is going to do with that data either.

Jason Rigby (17:29):

Yeah. "Facebook hosting services: Messaging with businesses is different than messaging with your family or friends."

Alexander McCaig (17:34):

Tell us, tell me more.

Jason Rigby (17:36):

"Some large businesses need to use hosting services to manage their communication. Which is why we’re giving businesses the option to use secure hosting services from Facebook to manage WhatsApp chats with their customers, answer questions, and send helpful information like purchase receipts. But 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." So they're saying, we see it but Gmail does, Yahoo does [crosstalk 00:18:07] and Verizon. Yeah, correct. Which may include advertising on Facebook. So they're saying it, "To make sure you're informed, we clearly label conversations with businesses that are choosing to use hosting services from Facebook."

Alexander McCaig (18:18):

There we go.

Jason Rigby (18:19):

"Discovering a business: You may see an ad on Facebook with a button to message a business using WhatsApp. If you have WhatsApp installed on your phone, you'll have the option to message that business. Facebook may use the way you interact with these ads to personalize the ads you see on Facebook."

Alexander McCaig (18:32):

Obviously, they all have that. [Oregon ad tracking 00:18:34]-

Jason Rigby (18:34):

And then the last one.

Alexander McCaig (18:36):

Yep.

Jason Rigby (18:37):

"Payments on WhatsApp," because you can do payments.

Alexander McCaig (18:39):

This is a big deal. A lot of people use WhatsApp for their payment profile-

Jason Rigby (18:42):

And they're sending money back and forth-

Alexander McCaig (18:44):

And it's very competitive with things like PayPal.

Jason Rigby (18:47):

"WhatsApp's UPI enabled payments has a separate privacy policy that governs that you can access here, and that privacy policy is not affected by this update." And I clicked on the "here" and kind of looked at it and it's the same as it's always been. It's pretty private. I mean, they're not going to... That's too much of a risk [crosstalk 00:19:05] when you're dealing with money. Yeah. So I love, I, personally, I don't know about you, Alex. I love the statements that they came out with and I wish that they would have done those in the beginning. We wouldn't have had the [WhatsApp, Kate. 00:19:18].

Alexander McCaig (19:18):

I love that. Thank you for story time. Sinéad O'Connor.

Speaker 1 (19:35):

Thank you for listening to TARTLE cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby. Where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path.