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Whatsapp new privacy policy 



WhatsApp has always made huge promises of safeguarding privacy, whether through the introduction of end-to-end encryption or through its promise of no compromise with privacy following its acquisition by Facebook. The sweeping changes to its privacy policy announced yesterday naturally came as a huge shock to its users. The chief changes being made are that WhatsApp will now share customer information with Facebook, in order to provide targeted ads and better friend suggestions, and with other third parties to allow businesses to communicate with users. WhatsApp has given its users a time limit of 30 days to opt-out of the new privacy policy. While the sudden announcement seems like a U-turn on every promise ever made by WhatsApp, the change is unfortunately legal.
WhatsApp can now share all information collected with anyone
Two years ago when WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook, WhatsApp put up a blogpost
which assured its users that the acquisition will leave its privacy practices unchanged. WhatsApp’s previous privacy practices were extremely user friendly. Basically the only information that WhatsApp collected was its customers’ contact number, their device information, and the contact numbers on their friends list. The old Privacy Policy made express promises that no information would be shared with anyone else, there would be no third-party ads, and no information shared for commercial or marketing purposes. WhatsApp’s new Privacy Policy now gives a vast list of information which it collects:
Your phone number, profile name and photo, online status and status message, last seen status.
Your e-mail when you communicate with them for customer service, with no promise that this e-mail address will not be used for any purpose other than for customer service communication.
Device data, such as hardware model, operating system information, browser information, IP address, mobile network information including phone number, and device identifiers.
Location data.
Information on your online status such as when you were last seen online, when you updated your status message, etc.
Information from third party services that are integrated with WhatsApp, for example, if you share any article from the web using WhatsApp.
Information on who is messaging you, calling you or which groups you belong to.
Under the new Privacy Policy, there is no restriction being placed on what type of information is shared with whom. For example, it is not specified that only contact numbers will be shared with Facebook for the purpose of targeted ads. Any or all the information listed above can be shared not only with Facebook, but also with any other third party.
Yet another change is while the new Privacy Policy keeps the promise of no third party banner ads, it now says that in future if WhatsApp changes its mind, it can have these ads through a change in the privacy policy.

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