Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp is delaying an update aimed at boosting business transactions on the platform following a storm of concern from users who feared the messaging platform was raining down its privacy policy in the process.
WhatsApp users were notified this month that they were preparing a new privacy policy and terms, and reserved the right to share some user data with the Facebook app.
That has spurred global and fast gatherings of new users to competitive private messaging apps including Telegram and Signal.
WhatsApp said Friday that it would delay the launch of a new policy until May from February, that the update was aimed at allowing users to send a message with businesses, and that the update will not affect personal conversations, which still have end-to-end encryption. .
“This update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook,” he said in a statement.
“While not everyone will be buying business with WhatsApp today, we believe that more people will choose to do so in the future and it is important that people are aware of these services,” he said. e.
Facebook has been rolling out business tools on WhatsApp over the past year as it moves to increase revenue from higher growth entities like WhatsApp and Instagram and weave together a bunch -extra-wide e-commerce structure.
Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $ 19 billion in 2014 but it has been slow to make money on it.
The app already shares certain categories of personal data, including the user’s phone number and IP address, with Facebook.
“We don’t keep logs of who everyone’s messages or calls are. We also can’t see your shared location and we don’t share your contacts with Facebook,” he said. .
WhatsApp said in October that it would begin offering in-app purchases through the Facebook Store and would enable companies that use their messenger service messaging devices to store those messages on Facebook’s servers.
WhatsApp said at the time that business chatting using the new hosting service would not be protected by end-to-end encryption of the app.
(Reuters)