Italian users are also receiving notifications on the new rules of use of WhatsApp. The news is that from February 8, those who do not accept them will no longer be able to use the popular messaging app. As of January 4th, both the Terms of Service and the WhatsApp privacy policies have changed. Reason? To guarantee an ever greater integration of the instant messaging service with the parent company: Facebook.
This is not trivial and not only due to the size of a market that now has almost 3 billion users. In reality this notification changes everything. The reason is easy to understand: despite the reassurances given the day Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014, if you do not accept these (non-negotiable) conditions from February 8, you will no longer be able to use the service. Clear letters are written in the notification where two updates are highlighted: the method of data processing and how companies can use the services available on Facebook to store and manage their chats on WhatsApp.
The new rules apparently are not very different from the previous ones but are much more detailed. While it is undisputed that any such service exchanges information by collaborating with external partners and suppliers, WhatsApp also offers customers and affiliates “information on orders, transactions and appointments, notifications on deliveries and shipments, updates on products and services and marketing.” which are shared with “specific services to companies and other organizations”. In addition, it is written on the WhatsApp website that “in order to manage our global Services, we must store and distribute content and information in our data centers and systems around the world, even outside the countries of residence of the user and owned by our service providers, including affiliated companies, or operated by them. “
And this is the critical point. While nothing changes in the methods of registering for the service (possible from 16 years in Europe), in the management of the address book and in the costs, the change in the offer of these services concerns the fact that the companies with which WhatsApp exchanges data have multiplied. and information. WhatsApp says it explicitly: from now on all data and information produced by user interactions, including those collected automatically, can be used by Facebook and its companies. They are many, global and popular such as Instagram, Boomerang, Messenger, Thread, including Facebook stores and the companies that manage the rights of Oculus, the headset and equipment for virtual reality, the business of the future.
In short, in order to exchange greetings for the next New Year for free, it will be mandatory to give a lot of personal information for multiple commercial services. Starting with the new “cart” function where you can load purchases and which should appear next to the icon to make phone calls. But the data that can be shared between WhatsApp, Facebook and the other companies of the group are not only the telephone number and contacts, the name and image of the groups, but also the so-called metadata, i.e. the duration and frequency of interactions. that we have as individual users and companies, including transaction data, and all information about the devices used to do so, including IP address and network location. The risk is that our online activity is less and less confidential. The official motivation remains to improve the infrastructure and delivery systems, ensure the protection, security and integrity of Facebook companies’ products to prevent abuse and violations, improve services and user experience, etc., but come to think of it the core of the question is to understand how the services of Facebook companies are used, to offer us what we are most likely to want, and buy it on the basis of the detailed profiling of the activities of our account.
In the evening, on the Ansa website, a clarification from the company arrived: “” There are no changes to the methods of sharing WhatsApp data in the European Region, including the United Kingdom, deriving from the updating of the Terms of Service and the Privacy policy – explains a spokesperson for WhatsApp – We do not share the data of users of the European area with Facebook in order to allow Facebook to use such data to improve its products or advertisements “.
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