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Comment by hoppla | Hacker News Reader

« She said that update was intended to do two things: enable a new set of features around business messaging, and “make clarifications and provide greater transparency” around the company’s pre-existing policies. “There are no changes to our data sharing with Facebook anywhere in the world,” Sweeney said.»

This is worrying - does she say that the policy was updated to reflect what they already was doing?

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WhatsApp and Facebook have been sharing metadata since about 1 year after the acquisition (so, 5 years already). They weren’t public about it, but they have acknowledged it.

I don’t know if that applies to Europe as well; they promised European regulators they wouldn’t, but (a) it was before GDPR, and (b) it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission.

If I had to guess, I’d say they have shared it for Europeans before GDPR and perhaps stopped since. Perhaps not. And perhaps they have this weird bug that copies WhatsApp metadata to Facebook, like many other accidental bugs that help their cause.

Facebook agreed to not share WhatsApp data with other products as part of the agreement that gave them the EU regulator's permission to take over WhatsApp. If they shared data, it would have been a breach of that agreement.

They have shared data. I believe it was even acknowledged publicly (and especially now, with the “the tos change actually reflects practices”).

They’re ignoring GDPR and a variety of other laws; why would this agreement be different?

Because EU anti-trust violations give way bigger fines than GDPR violations.

What would happen if the regulator finds you breach a predicament for a merge or acquisition?

Could, for example, Facebook be forced to sell WhatsApp (in the EU)?

They will most probably get a slap on the wrist in form of a fine.

List of highest fines: https://dataprivacymanager.net/5-biggest-gdpr-fines-so-far-2...

Those are data-protection fines.

AFAIK, Giving OK to Facebook buying WhatsApp was mostly an Antitrust issue.

No, that is the wrong list of fines.

http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/EU-GOOGLE-...

That's a quote from the director of public policy for Europe, and the new terms don't apply in Europe.

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