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Comment by dotancohen | Hacker News Reader

So it's like saying "Everything that you say to XYZ business we can listen in on"? Would we accept that from our phone companies?

Does the term "business" include governments as well?

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If you buy something from a shop, everything related to that transaction is known to the shop partners. If you talk to an automated machine over phone, everything you say will be recorded. This seems similar, all you say to the business will be logged by Facebook. But not because you use WhatsApp, but because the business choosed Facebook to "help" with all its transactions. If you talk to a business via telegram/Twitter/matrix/etc, and the business uses a Facebook backend, all you say can be recorded and used by Facebook.

By business I'm referring to WhatsApp business accounts.

Yes we would. Since regular phone calls aren't encrypted, not to speak of E2EE, phone companies can listen on all calls.

Of course I suspect Meta actually will listen on business calls while traditional phone companies will most likely only do so after a court order, but we put the bar much higher with digital services compared to regular phone calls.

That's because there's no monetary reason for the phone company to listen in but Facebook is all about listening and recording.

I don't mean "can" as in "technically possible, even if they have no reason to". I mean "can" as in "explicitly invited, with the intention to use the data gathered to try to influence my opinion or viewpoints [1] in the future".

[1] Advertising, and maybe political messages

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