A few days ago, Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp announced a new privacy policy for the users and gave them until 8th February to agree to the new terms to avoid losing access to the platform. The updated terms were not well-received by the users, prompting a surge in the users of its competitors — Signal and Telegram.
Although the company tried to diffuse the situation by putting out statements, it wasn’t enough. Now, the company has announced that it is giving more time to the users for agreeing to the controversial privacy policy and the reason being cited by the company for this delay is mass confusion and misinformation about the update.
The company says that it will allow users to “review the policy at their own pace before new business options are available on May 15.” It also added that the company won’t be cutting off anyone’s service on February 8.
It further reiterated what it has been putting out in the statements for the past few days. WhatsApp said that the company remains committed to end-to-end encryption and that “this update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook.”
The updated privacy policy terms of WhatsApp reveals that the company’s recent focus on business messaging, a feature that’s widely used in many places, especially the emerging markets. Although the company seems to be trying to reverse its course of action, the damage is already done. The platforms that benefited the most from this include Signal and Telegram, among others, which received millions of new users in a matter of days.
