They weren’t allowed to do that under old TOS, and the whole point of this update is to allow data sharing when contacting businesses, that will allow building business tools.
https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/answer...
It brings more functionality like Messenger to interface with businesses - which I have found value in. For instance United service there was quicker and better than using the phone line to change/re-book flights.
Maybe I'm missing something?
Does that make spreading what's effectively disinformation ok, though?
I'd argue that there are more than enough angles to legitimately criticize Facebook. Why make one up?
Only if I'm talking a business on WhatsApp (which is optional and will hopefully stay that way), and only if the business I'm talking to uses Facebook as a service provider (instead of, say, Twilio or a self-hosted solution) does something change for me.
Facebook has indicated that businesses processing chats through Facebook will be clearly indicated as doing so, which hopefully puts enough pressure on businesses respecting their customers' privacy to not do so.
Businesses not respecting people's privacy can already choose to share arbitrary data with Facebook for advertisement purposes, so what changes?
Now if Facebook was to discontinue the existing E2E-encrypted business chat integration, that would be something to get upset about.
I'm really afraid that the only lesson that Facebook (and others) have learned in all of this is that TOS changes are best hidden in the fine print of opting into some user-visible new feature via some dark UX pattern, like e.g. Google commonly does.
No it is not.
Does it say there is some sort of opt in to a business conversation, not only now but in the future? No.
So, you are giving Facebook the right to sell your private conversations to third parties in the future, but you think it’s not an issue because you trust ... checks notes... Facebook?
Really?
Where in the new TOS does it say that?
A poster bellow in this thread quoted a Wired article where some FB representative says they will "honor" the opt-out, yet this is not stated anywhere in the privacy policy as far as I can tell. I think it would be trivial for Facebook to make this clear in their new policy.
Same here. Don't get me wrong, I'm as deeply suspicious of everything that Facebook touches as the next person.
But here Facebook is seemingly doing a pretty normal/expected thing, and people (and more or less reputable news sources) portray it as a data-privacy scandal?
What's worst is that at least in my country, at least half of all articles about this were mentioning Telegram as a "secure, encrypted alternative to WhatsApp". This makes me very sad.
So they were saying one thing in legal terms (we can share your data with facebook to improve facebook products) and another elsewhere (we will only share minimal data about and with businesses you communicate with, within this feature).
Personally I trust them to adhere to their TOS far more than their newsroom blog. So while I believe their short-term plans are reasonable, in the long-term Facebook has demonstrated repeatedly that they will do whatever they can get away with.
> The messaging platform laid out fresh terms in January, aimed at increasing business transactions on the platform.
Why have 1bn users and make $1 per user? Isn't it better if then have 200mn users and make $20 per user?
For me this 'shedding freeloaders and privacy-oriented-users' helps them more than not.
We have discussed pricing and volumes of customers before in this forum, multiple times, and for multiple products/services.
Is it better to have 1000 users and make $1 from each ($1000), or it is better to have 100 users and make $50 from each ($5000 and less support/maintenance/infrastructure costs)?
Facebook's obligation is to the shareholders. Shareholders want bigger pie. Shareholders will get a bigger pie. Apparently FB didn't lose enough users to be scared. Reality/facts drive this.
In a related note, I installed Viber. It asked me to share data with advertisers. I tapped to see the list. I scrolled (on my android phone) VERY fast, for 22 seconds to go through it.
This is the problem. Businesses must take on additional legal responsibilities and not simply say “we care about profits — at the expense of everything else”.
This will require legislation, and perhaps and end to “MBA-culture”, which seems to promote sociopaths to the highest peaks of society.
"All the freeloaders" is half the reason that WhatsApp is popular: no matter who you want to contact, they likely had a WhatsApp account — from your elderly mother to your college friends to the B&B that you're going to stay at abroad.
If it goes from "everyone I know is on WhatsApp" to "1 in 20 people I know are on WhatsApp" maybe I'm less inclined to continue to fork over $20.
Let’s be real, I don’t think this is a realistic ratio of users lost. They made a cost benefits analysis and are going on with the plan.
The presence of the 'freeloaders' makes the value of the network.
In one case you make $1BN and in the other you make $4BN. So yes, the latter would objectively be better. :-)
If those 200 million users have to choose between paying you $20/year or paying only $1 and joining a network with 1 billion users...they'll probably choose the later. Then you won't see those 4 billion dollars.
If users cost $0.05 / user to support, that's very different than $1 / user.
Software products scale... but they don't scale completely free.
Now, widely used messaging platform also means content moderation team and local law enforcement alignment.
The lesson is then that it is in the best interest of users to steer clear of any shareholder-owned network in as wide arc as possible.