WhatsApp Clarifies its Privacy Policy After Public Uproar: Digital Businesses May Face Implications!

WhatsApp released a clarification blog on Tuesday, explaining their privacy policy update. The company emphasized that they do not share any data from personal conversations of the users with anyone, including Facebook. The privacy policy for personal conversation is to stay as it is after the update.

Moreover, it clarified that the user’s exact personal location is end-to-end encrypted and not used unless after the user’s consent. The platform cannot store or share anyone’s exact location, it cannot hear or record any personal calls, and it doesn’t share contact information with Facebook or any other partner company.

However, it will not be the same for business communication. WhatsApp elaborated that businesses collect information about customer interactions, whether it’s through their own platform or even through emails, in order to optimize their services depending on customer’s needs. WhatsApp has widely been used as a platform for personal communication. However, nowadays, more and more businesses are using WhatsApp as a means of professional communication.

WhatsApp needs to update its privacy policy to bring more transparency, and some of the business information will be shared with Facebook and its other products. The reason is to provide businesses with secure hosting services from Facebook in order for them to easily use WhatsApp Marketing Services to send and receive information, receipts, etc. Moreover, they mentioned that it might interpret your communication with business and use the information to display ads. It is clarified that all conversations with any business choosing to use Facebook Hosting services will be clearly labeled.

The response to the public reaction was needed because of Facebook's shady history regarding user’s privacy and previous scandals surrounding Facebook and its partners selling people’s private information to other businesses. Facebook lacks customer trust in this regard, and that was the underlying cause of such harsh public reaction. Moreover, social media users are getting concerned about their privacy online, and they are not ready to allow any personal information to be revealed or shared with others. WhatsApp was losing its customers to Signal and Telegram, especially after a tweet from Elon Musk urging people to use Signal instead of WhatsApp. A response from WhatsApp was imperative to save its clientele. It is a step in the right direction to clarify what kind of data will be shared with other businesses and the reason behind it. It will help WhatsApp as a platform in the long run.