Earlier in the week Facebook-owned company, WhatsApp, released new terms of service to its messenger subscribers. They said some of the user data will be used or tracked to provide a personalized service. Which means Facebook and its companies will have access to them.
There’s a slate to take effect from February 8 and if users aren’t comfortable with WhatsApp’s new user data policy, they have no choice but to agree to the terms to continue the service or deactivate the app. installation.
WhatsApp has specified that the individual and group chat conversations between the user and friends & family will be rounded to the end and the data will never be available for marketing ads or any other purposes on its messenger app.
However, the chat conversation between enterprise / business owners and customers on WhatsApp can be used by Facebook and its agencies. There are many more publicity issues and the company has not spoken to them to the public.
Apple recently introduced privacy leaflets on the App Store. This measure made WhatsApp and others reveal what and how much user information they are constantly collecting and tracking.
Facebook and its companies may collect users’ phone numbers, other people’s phone numbers stored on the contact list, profile names, profile pictures, status messages (including when a last user was -online), financial details, diagnostic data collected from app logs, and more on WhatsApp.
Add to that, the company’s ultimatum capability prompted billions of consumers to criticize more strongly from each quarter. Security experts and users stopped WhatsApp for being deaf in protecting users ’privacy.
The richest man in the world and the founder of Tesla & SpaceX, Elon Musk with a one – word tweet urged fans to switch to Signal, an instant messenger app encrypted to the end.
Use Signal
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 7 January 2021
And, in another message, Musk took a dig at Facebook and indirectly blamed it on supporting a fanatical Republican to mobilize the population for the siege of the U.S. Capitol Hill Building in Washington.
This is called the domino effect pic.twitter.com/qpbEW54RvM
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 7 January 2021
Already, Signal has dethroned WhatsApp as the best free app on Apple App Store in India. Also, another competitive Telegram is also getting regular acceptance among users.
If we look at the privacy label on both Telegram and Signal Messenger and compare them with WhatsApp Messenger, we get a clearer picture of how much user data is connected, stored and tracked.
There is no official data on the extent to which users have switched to Signal or Telegram or any other messenger app yet.
For now, based on trends on social media platforms, Signal seems to be the best choice among users to take privacy very important for private communication. All it takes is the phone number to register and that’s it. No other information will be used or tracked at any time. However, one drawback is that Signal Messenger does not offer cloud backup. This means that if the user loses a phone or accidentally resets the phone, they lose all conversations and contacts. They will not be able to convert any old data back to the new phone and will have to restart.
Another Telegram competitor shares one or two features with WhatsApp. The former does not offer end-to-end encryption by default and but on the bright side, it has a special secret conversation that no one even gets Telegram or storage. Only the person who sent it and the recipient will see it. If the timer is set for the message, it will self-destruct after the set time expires.
Here’s how to start secret chairs on Telegram:
Open the profile of the user you want to contact >> Tap on ‘…’ >>> and then ‘Start Secret Chat’.
It should be noted that Telegram secret chairs are specifically related to devices. If you start a secret conversation with a friend on one of your devices, this conversation will only be available on that device. If you log out, you will lose your secret chairs.
Like WhatsApp, Telegram also offers a cloud storage option, but runs the risk of decryption if anyone gets hold of the user’s account ID (either Google Drive / iCloud) and password . Telegram servers also have access to the encryption key.
If used with the Secret chats feature, Telegram is still better of the two WhatsApp options. Also, users can share multimedia content up to 2GB and also create a larger chat group.
However, these are early days, as WhatsApp is ordering a larger user base of nearly 2 billion and most users are still unaware of the new terms and user privacy policy. However, it will not be long before they understand what is at stake and come to an informed decision about whether or not to continue using Facebook products.
To date, Signal is said to have over 15 million downloads and the Telegram has an additional 400 million user base worldwide on both Android and iOS platforms.
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