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Comment by kevcampb | Hacker News Reader

Why not read the ToS? It's pretty clear and very user friendly. The short version - they don't store your data, and there is no right for Facebook to get that data historically.

That's not to say they can't change it in future, but I'm sure if they do there will be a massive exodus from the network.

And to further clarify on your comment - whatsapp is a paid for app, not advert supported. They only charge the iPhone users, however. Cost of the app is $1 for iPhone. Suspect android users would never touch it, as they don't have payment details set up on Google Play's store.

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Thanks for interpreting the ToS.

That pricing model you are talking about is old. They now make the first year free & charge $1/year after that for all platforms.

The Android version is free for one year only.

And it seems that they very rarely collect those fees, if at all. I've certainly had my android install over one year, and no request for payment. See plenty of other similar reports online.

Suspect getting users to pay $1 is going to be a real pain, not for the cost, but for the convenience factor.

You say rarely, but I've never heard of any accounts of them collecting the fee. Do you know if they have?

In the UK, me and at least 3 of my friends have had to pay after a year.

Not sure if anyone I know has not had to pay after a year

What when it asks you to pay? Are you completely locked out until the transactions complete? or some variant (i.e. can receive msgs but can't send)

"In the event that WhatsApp is acquired by or merged with a third party entity, we reserve the right to transfer or assign the information we have collected from our users as part of such merger, acquisition, sale, or other change of control." http://www.whatsapp.com/legal/

Hence why I moved to Telegram.

"The contents of messages that have been delivered by the WhatsApp Service are not copied, kept or archived by WhatsApp in the normal course of business."

followed by

"If the recipient is not online, the undelivered message is held in WhatsApp’s server until it can be delivered. If the message is undelivered for thirty (30) days, the undelivered message is deleted from our servers. Once a message has been delivered, it no longer resides on our servers. The contents of any delivered messages are not kept or retained by WhatsApp — the only records of the content of any delivered messages reside directly on the sender’s and recipient’s mobile devices (and which may be deleted at the user’s option)."

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