Monday, December 23

WhatsApp postpones changes in its conditions of use after the controversy over the exchange of data with Facebook

BBC News Mundo

After a drop in its downloads and an unprecedented upturn in the number of new users reported by its competitors, WhatsApp decided to postpone the changes in its conditions of use for three months, which raised concerns about data privacy issues.

The mobile messaging application announced this Friday that the changes announced at the beginning of the year will no longer take effect on February 8, but on 15 May.

The new terms of use of WhatsApp generated controversy because they allow the virtual platform to share the information of its users with its parent company, Facebook.

“There was a lot of misinformation that raised concerns and we want to help everyone understand our principles . We are now postponing the date on which users will be asked to review and accept the terms, ”the company said in a statement.

Between the week before and the one after the announcement of WhatsApp changes, app downloads dropped from 11. 3 million to 9.2 million.

“Clarify”

Signal
Signal is one of the applications that saw an increase in its downloads.

Another reason indicated by the world’s most popular messaging service for postponing the implementation of its changes in the terms of use is that it detected “confusion” among its users.

“We will also do a lot more to clear up misinformation about how privacy and security works on WhatsApp ”, adds the platform’s statement.

  • How Signal and Telegram differ from WhatsApp and which one offers more privacy

    • The company emphasizes that neither it nor Facebook can and will not have access to messages between users and recalls that it uses a End-to-end encryption so that no one but the sender and receiver can see the content of your conversations.

    Since the controversy began, the Signal and Telegram applications reported record numbers of downloads.

    They reached positions 1 and 2 of the Apple AppStore a few days after the announcement of WhatsApp.

    • The millions of des uploads registered by Telegram and Signal after the announcement of the new conditions of use of WhatsApp

    Both have been arguing for years that they are more secure and have stricter policies on data protection of its users.

    Different technology experts publicly recommended switching to those two platforms.

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