New York (AFP)
Under fire from critics after the announcement of a change to its terms of use, the mobile messaging platform WhatsApp has decided to postpone the entry into force of its new terms of use by three months, seeking to reassure users. users on the protection of their personal data.
"We are now delaying the date by which users will have to review and agree to the terms," the company said in a blog post on Friday.
The changes, which were supposed to come into effect on February 8, will not be effective until May 15.
Last week, WhatsApp asked its some two billion users to agree to new conditions before February 8, or else they would no longer be able to access their account.
This decision has been interpreted by many detractors as an attempt by the platform to share more data with the parent company, Facebook, which bought WhatsApp in 2014.
On Friday, the company insisted that the update would not "strengthen our ability to share data with Facebook", but was primarily intended to help businesses communicate better with their customers through the platform.
The application aims in particular to allow advertisers to sell their products directly on WhatsApp, as is already the case in India, its largest market with some 400 million users.
“We know there has been confusion and misinformation about this update, and we want to help everyone understand our principles and the facts,” the company said.
WhatsApp conversations will continue to be end-to-end encrypted and neither Facebook nor WhatsApp will be able to see these private messages, she assures.
The announcement of the update last week had caused panic and anger among many users, who were alarmed at the abandonment of WhatsApp's founding values.
The application has built its reputation in particular on data protection.
The platform had tried to calm the fire with reassuring announcements and advertising campaigns, but competing services, such as Signal and Telegram, were able to take advantage of the confusion and saw their downloads soar on Apple Store online stores. and Google Play in several countries.
The whimsical Tesla boss Elon Musk even urged his Twitter followers to use Signal, considered one of the most secure apps out there.
- Turkish and Italian critics -
For its part, the Competition Authority in Turkey announced on Monday the opening of an investigation against WhatsApp and Facebook, demanding the suspension of the update.
The country's authorities have in recent days urged citizens to favor the use of a local messaging application, BiP, developed by the mobile operator Turkcell.
In Italy, the Data Protection Authority ruled that WhatsApp had not clearly communicated the nature of the changes to its customers.
"The conditions of use and the new measures on privacy do not allow users to understand what changes are introduced and what will be the concrete processing of data after February 8," said the Italian institution on Thursday, which said turned to the European Data Protection Board.
Privacy policy is a crucial subject for the big names in tech, who are regularly accused by regulators and organizations around the world of wanting to exploit more and more personal information in order to boost their advertising revenue.
On Friday, the Uber chauffeur-driven car reservation platform announced changes to its terms of use, effective from January 18.
"Please note that we do not make any changes to the way we use your data," however was quick to clarify the company.
"We will continue to uphold our long-standing policy of not sharing or selling your data for marketing or advertising purposes unless we have your consent."
© 2021 AFP