Sigh. How far WhatsApp has come from living by Tyler Durden's words. Facebook-owned messaging company WhatsApp said yesterday that it will be collecting user data including phone numbers, usage patterns, status and login information to perform analytics and for “people (users) to communicate with businesses”. Further such information will also be shared with Facebook and Facebook’s family of apps so that it can track basic metrics like how often users utilize services. By connecting a user’s phone number with Facebook’s servers, “Facebook can offer better friend suggestions and show you more relevant ads (on timeline) if you have an account with them,” said the company in a statement. However the company pledges that it will not display banner ads as a policy, and that it will not share phone numbers with third-party advertisers or on Facebook timeline or users on Facebook, and on other features. Users can choose to opt-out: Note that WhatsApp users can nevertheless choose not share such information with Facebook by opting out of it from the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy settings. Users will have to agree to all terms and policies stated, and within 30 days of agreeing, you can still choose not to share account information from Account settings section. More on this here. But these developments seems to be different from what WhatsApp promised while being acquired by Facebook in 2014. WhatsApp once promised not to collect user data Many critics and users raised concerns about their privacy when Facebook acquired WhtasApp…
