It has been a rough start of the year for Whatsapp since they announced plans to update their data sharing policy. The company has now announced plans to delay the privacy policy update from February 8 to March 15,2021.
Whatsapp’s plan to update the privacy policy has been the subject of a majority of trends on social media in the last two weeks. The app’s users were updated through a pop-up of Whatsapp’s intention to share data with Facebook.
The notification asked users to either agree with the new terms or delete their accounts. In what seems like a miscalculation on the company’s part, many users decided to delete their accounts and move to competitors, Telegram and Signal.
Read: Whatsapp Reassures Users of Privacy Despite Policy Update
Whatsapp said that the update had cause confusion and backlash from users who perhaps had misunderstood the message. They therefore sought to clarify the issue.
“We’ve heard from so many people how much confusion there is around our recent update,” the company wrote Friday in a blog post. “There’s been a lot of misinformation causing concern and we want to help everyone understand our principles and the facts.”
Whatsapp emphasized on the fact that its messages are end-to-end encrypted, meaning only the sender and the recepient can read them. They also reassured clients that those messages are not stored on Facebook’s servers.
Read also: Telegram Users Spike Following Whatsapp Data Sharing Update
According to the popular messaging app, a lot of businesses and consumers are using Whatsapp to shop. As a result, the company has been focused on developing the right messaging tools for businesses.
The updated privacy was intended to let users know that those (business) messages, would be stored on Facebook-owned servers. Facebook however says that it has no intention of using or accessing the messages for any type of ad targeting.
The delivery of the message might have left a lot of users confused, hence the mass exodus to other messaging apps.
Read also: WhatsApp’s Latest Data Sharing Policy Update Prompting Users To Join Competitor, “Signal”
Whatsapp further clarified that the update would not affect private messages between family and friends.
“While not everyone shops with a business on WhatsApp today, we think that more people will choose to do so in the future and it’s important people are aware of these services,” the company wrote. “This update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook.”
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