WhatsApp in recent years had set a benchmark for many of the social media companies for them with messaging without the onset of promotions or ads. Billions of users had preferred usage of WhatsApp as there was no promoted post or pop-ups, but now after the integration with its parent company Facebook many questions are being raised. The main question is whether or not this social media giant would end up losing their authenticity over the many other prevalent applications in the market owing to the new privacy update.
Becoming effective from February of this year, WhatsApp will be enforcing their new privacy policy for all the users except those in EU which allows Facebook, the parent company of WhatsApp will be granted permission for users to read personal data of users such as phone numbers and even IP addresses.
Despite WhatsApp stating that privacy plays a vital code in their DNA, many users believe that it is still giving up the privacy and this is the toll one ends up paying for the usage of unpaid service.
It’s high that we decide to face the reality that when one decides to avail free services such as WhatsApp, we end up being a key part of the revenue model. Data is the new oil. There are wars out there to have more of it and leverage the same in many different ways to monetize the same. Privacy and Identity become more and more precious and unless and until we decide to opt for paid services the game keeps going on the similar lines.
Users cannot back out of this data sharing policy the only way out is the very stoppage of using all such application. In these scenarios owning to a long due strict privacy policy which would seem to be working for the Indian users.
All said and done, WhatsApp’s new privacy policy is threatening to many and seems to be bringing to fore India’s privacy policy and regulations apart from putting Facebook’s integrity in a questionable position.
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