UWhatsApp emphasizes privacy WhatsApp (green logo, left) has reassured users about privacy as it faces off against rival secure mobile messaging services such as Signal
WhatsApp reassured users on Tuesday about the privacy of the Facebook-owned messaging service, as people flocked to rivals Telegram and Signal after a change to its terms.
There has been “a lot of misinformation” about a terms of service update regarding an option to use WhatsApp to message businesses, Facebook CEO Adam Mosseri, who runs Instagram, said in a tweet.
WhatsApp’s new terms have drawn criticism as users outside Europe who do not accept the new terms by February 8 will be banned from the messaging app.
“The policy update does not in any way affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family,” Mosseri said.
The update affects how merchants using WhatsApp to chat with customers may share data with Facebook, which could use the information to target ads, according to the social network.
You can’t see your private messages or hear your calls, and neither can Facebook,” WhatsApp said in a blog post.
“We don’t keep logs of who everyone is messaging or calling
We can’t see your shared location and neither can Georgia WhatsApp Number List Facebook.” Location data as well as message content are end-to-end encrypted, according to WhatsApp.
“We’re offering businesses the ability to use Facebook’s secure hosting services to manage WhatsApp chats with their customers, answer questions, and send useful information like purchase receipts,” WhatsApp said in the post.
“Whether you communicate with a company by phone, email or WhatsApp, they can see what you say and may use that information for their own marketing purposes, which may include advertising on Facebook.”
Encrypted messaging app Telegram has seen its user WhatsApp Number Database ranks surge following the announcement of WhatsApp’s terms of service, its Russian-born founder Pavel Durov said.
Durov, 36, said on his Telegram channel on Tuesday that the app had more than 500 million monthly active users in the first weeks of January and “25 million new users joined Telegram in the last 72 hours alone.”
WhatsApp has over two billion users.
“People no longer want to trade their privacy for free services”
Durov said, without directly referring to the rival app. Encrypted messaging app Signal also saw a surge in demand, helped by a tweeted recommendation from popular serial entrepreneur Bulk Database Elon Musk. In India, WhatsApp’s largest market with some 400 million users, the two apps gained about 4 million subscribers last week, financial daily Mint reported, citing data from research firm Sensor Tower.
WhatsApp sought to reassure worried users in the South Asian country, running full-page ads in newspapers on Wednesday proclaiming that “your privacy is in our DNA.” Telegram is a social media platform popular in a number of countries, particularly the former Soviet Union and Iran, and is used both for private communications and sharing information and news.
