WhatsApp: Europeans rebel against new terms of use

It is a very serious showdown between WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook on the one hand and many countries that want to protect the exploitation of the personal data of their citizens.

As of this weekend, the last update of WhatsApp foresees that the personal data of the users will be recorded by the application.

Hence fears about the use that could be made of this data by Facebook.

Three months ago, this update was delayed because it caused an uproar.

But this time, WhatsApp and Facebook are taking action.

And they warn: if you refuse, well within a few weeks, you will no longer receive messages or calls on WhatsApp.

Facebook wants to be reassuring on the sharing of data.

Regulators in several countries and not the least, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany among others, do not trust.

The German supervisory authority has just banned Facebook from processing personal data collected via WhastApp.

She sharply criticizes the update of WhatsApp: "even after a thorough analysis, the consequences that an acceptance has on the users are not clear".

In fact, what is clear is that if Facebook is so keen on collecting your personal data, it is not to turn it into peanuts, it is to generate income from it.

This is the counterpart of the fact that WhatsApp is free.

Exactly: Facebook bought WhatsApp for $ 19 billion in 2014 but it does not monetize this service. It would be better for Facebook to be more transparent about its intentions rather than pretending that nothing will change. In the meantime, users who fear that their data will be exploited, it is not clear how can fall back on other messaging services such as Telegram, Signal, Skred or even Citadel, which offer similar services. Telegram already has 550 million users and it has recruited 50 million since WhatsApp talked about its famous update. The competition is rubbing its hands.