The Risks of Facebook's Data Sharing Plan for WhatsApp (FB)
Leading chat platform, Facebook-owned WhatsApp (FB), announced on Thursday that it will begin sharing user data with its corporate parent.Apart from outrage by users who feel betrayed by WhatsApp's oath to protect user privacy, Facebook may need to worry about an unfriendly visit from the Federal Trade Commission.When the social media giant acquired WhatsApp for $22 billion in 2014, the FTC wrote a letter to the companies warning them to honor promises or face investigation into unfair trade practices.
Facebook Now Using Your WhatsApp Data For Advertising – Consumerist
Back in 2014, Facebook acquired messaging service WhatsApp in a headline-grabbing $16 billion deal.WhatsApp, though, had been built around respecting users' privacy, while Facebook is, well, the exact opposite of that.Then, and for two years after, the head of WhatsApp promised that the company wasn't going to "sell users out," writing at the time that, "Respect for your privacy is coded into our DNA" and that he wouldn't have sold the company to Facebook if Zuck's empire said it wanted to change that.
Facebook's WhatsApp Data Gambit Faces Federal Privacy Complaint
Facebook's decision to begin harvesting data from its popular WhatsApp messaging service provoked a social media uproar on Thursday, and prompted leading privacy advocates to prepare a federal complaint accusing the tech titan of violating US law.On Thursday morning, WhatsApp, which for years has dined out on its reputation for privacy and security, announced that it would begin sharing user phone numbers with its Menlo Park-based parent company in an effort "to improve your Facebook ads and products experiences."Consumer privacy advocates denounced the move as a betrayal of WhatsApp's one billion users—users who had been assured by the two companies that "nothing would change" about the messaging service's privacy practices after Facebook snapped up the startup for a whopping $19 billion in 2014."WhatsApp users should be shocked and upset," Claire Gartland, Consumer Protection Counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a leading US consumer advocacy group, told Motherboard.
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