Facebook has announced that it will deactivate its real-time location feature on May 31. With the shutdown of the tool, four functions will be closed: weather alerts, location history, background location and “close friends”.
The platform is already notifying its users of the changes, and on August 1, it is expected to erase all data already collected through these four services. According to Meta, the company that owns Facebook, the deactivation of tracking is due to the low use of the tool.
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Users who don’t want to lose their location data can access their profile settings to download it. The data will also be available for download until August 1st.
“People can still use Location Services to manage how their location information is collected and used,” the company said in a statement sent to The Verge.
Despite disabling tracking, Facebook will continue to collect users’ location “for other experiences” such as location ads and check-ins in accordance with its data policy.
Facebook disables location tracking for four functions. Image: Gil C – Shutterstock
Too late! Former WhatsApp director regrets selling the app to Facebook
Neeraj Arora, former chief commercial officer of WhatsApp, posted a thread on his Twitter account saying he regretted helping sell the app to Meta, which at the time was still called Facebook. The executive also said he was not the only one who regretted the transaction.
Arora said Mark Zuckerberg’s company first made an offer to buy WhatsApp between 2012 and 2013, but the deal fell through. In 2014, the tech giant again tried to buy the messenger with a series of conditions that made the deal look like a partnership.
According to Arora, Facebook seemed to accept all requests and truly believed in the purpose of the creators and directors of WhatsApp. “Of course, that’s not what happened,” laments the former director.
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