All you need to know about the current – and earlier Whatsapp Privacy Issues
By Nidhi Arora
Stage 1: The Fairy Tale: Growth and Consolidation
Once upon a time, a person made an app that allowed people on any phone – Apple, Windows phone, Android phone, Blackberry, etc., to send messages to each other over the internet.
This app was called Whatsapp – probably a pun on the popular greeting – What’s up? It did not charge the users anything.
Users loved the app and recommended it to each other. The app got many users. In April 2013, according to Analytics firm Onavo (this firm was later acquired by Facebook, making its data inaccessible to the public), Whatsapp was sending 8.2 billion messages a day, against 3.5 billion on FB Messenger.
But how does a messaging app make money? There were some options. One could give businesses the ability to connect with their customers using Whatsapp. One could also put ads in the platform. The Whatsapp team was still working that out.
In the meantime, in February 2014, Facebook acquired Whatsapp for 19 billion dollars – a huge amount that left many people surprised. The company had only 55 employees.
Facebook wanted to have a solution that offers instant messaging and Whatsapp was the clear leader in that segment.
After that, Facebook tried to combine data from both apps. Facebook’s business model is that it shows ads based on the customer’s interest. They believe that if you show the customer something that they are already interested in, they are more likely to buy. This is also the way that Google makes money.
(Business model is the way that a company intends to make and sell something and make profits).
Obviously, the more completely we understand a customer, the more we can show them ads that will actually make them buy.
This was the time when privacy concerns were starting to appear, and people were starting to wonder how much these companies know about them.
Stage 2: The Empire Awakens
Many countries realised that the private data of their citizens – who they talk to, what they search for, how long they spend on each activity in their day – the minutest details, were being captured by the Big Tech (Google, Facebook, Amazon) and used in a way that people do not always realise.
A company called Cambridge Analytica used this data to sway US presidential elections in 2016.
Once everyone got to know about that, Facebook and its partners were questioned by many countries – Europe, Singapore, India, US, etc.
In 2017 and early 2018, the original founders of Whatsapp – Brian Acton and Jan Koum, left the company. In 2018, Europe adopted the very strict GDPR Act. This Act made it impossible for private companies to collect and use private citizen data and put strict controls on how much data could be collected without consent of the user.
Big Tech is still continually challenged by governments. In July 2020, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon were grilled by the US Congress for many hours. (the recording is available online).
Stage 3: The Giant Roars
Big Tech is not one united whole. You will remember our news last year, when Fortnite took both Apple and Google to court over the 30% mandatory cut on in-app purchases.
In December, Apple made it necessary for app developers to upfront declare all the data that they were collecting about a user. Facebook retaliated with full page ads.
But the current issue is about this:
On Jan 4th and 5th, Whatsapp gave its users about a month to accept its new data policy. This policy would allow Facebook to share more data with Whatsapp and vice versa. By February 8th, users must either accept the new policy or leave Whatsapp.
Here are some key statistics about Whatsapp:
Whatsapp is available in 180 countries and has over 2 billion total installs and about 1.6 billion monthly active users (MAUs). India is Whatsapp’s largest market.
More than 65 billion messages are now sent via Whatsapp everyday.
Obviously, the company thought it was pretty well ingrained into the user’s life and no one would reject the new privacy policy. It would be Hobson’s choice. (A choice where the person does not effectively have a choice, is called Hobson’s choice).
But, as Priyanka aunty has reported on Tuesday, this led to millions of users moving to Telegram and Signal. Within a few days, Whatsapp’s active installs plummeted, Telegram and Signal literally surged, not just in terms of new users added but also for the number of messages being sent over these networks.
On January 13th, Telegram sent out a message to all users that within the last 72 hours, more than 25 million users have joined Telegram, taking the app to more than 500 million active users.
Signal saw an equal rise. It was downloaded by 17.8 million users, a 62% rise over the previous week.
Facebook had not expected this. They then tried to issue a clarification and also postponed the new policy change to May 8th.
On Jan 19th, the Government of India formally asked Facebook to not make the new changes.
There is also a case in the High Court against the new policy changes.
Endnote: So, what is the status, finally?
At this time, Facebook has not mentioned that it will withdraw the policy change. Only that it is postponed for 3 months.
It is also notable that at this time, India does not have a citizen privacy law. Even if such a law is later enacted and put into force, it is not likely to affect this consent that has been given by every Indian citizen. So, even if a privacy law is passed, it will not protect Indian citizens if they have already given consent for universal data access.
Facebook already has a feature called Off Facebook activity. In January 2020, Facebook made a change. This change allowed Facebook to track everything that is being done by the user even when they are not on Facebook. This is very like the universal data that is collected by Google on all Android phone users.
Right now, Off Facebook Activity is turned on by default for all users. But we can go and turn it off. Google does not give us the option to turn off much of our data collection through Android phones or other Google services.
So, endnote: It is your decision to make. There is no change in status, as far as Facebook is concerned. There is plenty of information out there on the security and privacy aspects of both the large contenders – Telegram and Signal. And there are plenty of smaller players that one can evaluate. Of course, one can also continue with Whatsapp.
Personal apps are always a personal decision.