WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app(arstechnica.com)

2254 points by erwinmatijsen 5 years ago | 1148 comments

kar1181 5 years ago |

It's harder for US folks to understand just how much of a monopoly WhatsApp has in Europe and the UK.

Pretty much all of our school and local community communication happens via WhatsApp. I'd change to Signal or Telegram in a heartbeat, but the inertia is so great it's not possible.

It pains me to say, but we're getting to the point where companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google need to be treated like utilities or something so that such moves as these can be scrutinised and controlled more effectively as Facebook could pretty much (within current law) introduce whatever policy they like and users would be faced with the option of accepting or being cut off from their local community.

Given the pandemic and the UK lockdown, this is not tolerable.

tdubhro1 5 years ago | |

I'm also in the UK and I deleted WhatsApp 2 years ago when it became clear that Facebook intended to move in the direction of fuller integration (I deleted my Facebook account after 1 month of usage 10 years ago). However, I had to reinstall WhatsApp because all of my kid's sports activities and school updates are organised through WhatsApp groups and it is impossible to participate without WhatsApp. Much as I believe in the cause, I'm not going to go preach it to the volunteers who coach my kids' rugby team. The scary thing here is that the actual real-life "social network" has been privatised and monopolised, and now we can't participate in society in very important ways without going through Facebook.

edeion 5 years ago | | |

My experience is similar.

I want to add that when I left WhatsApp (~2y ago) I deleted my account. WhatsApp kept accepting messages on my behalf. People didn't know I wasn't getting their messages. I'm surprised I don't see this mentioned to the point I wonder if I did something wrong at the time.

In the end, I reopened a WhatsApp account recently because everyone is using WhatsApp in France and I couldn't stand breaking everyone's efforts to bring us together during lockdown.

kar1181 5 years ago | | |

This is precisely the dilemma in a nutshell.

You have a choice but it's a bit like voluntary solitary confinement. Especially during a lockdown.

hkt 5 years ago | | |

I tried to run a branch of a charity without WhatsApp and Facebook for two years and it was impossible. I had to give in and sign up.

So, these things should be regulated and operated like utilities. Phone companies don't have the right to mine my contact list, and neither should Facebook.

driverdan 5 years ago | | |

> I'm not going to go preach it to the volunteers who coach my kids' rugby team.

Why not? I would.

heresie-dabord 5 years ago | | |

If you think privacy is important, you have to do something about it.

It's a lesson in civics. To do nothing and say nothing while expecting someone else to fight the good fight is poor citizenship, but it is very good consumerism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

saos 5 years ago | | |

Wow I had a similar experience at university. I only joined Facebook because my course had a Facebook group where we all communicated. Now this same hook exists in WhatsApp. It’s pretty crazy

bigbizisverywyz 5 years ago | | |

the issue is that people would probably not want to pay for an app like WhatsApp, and so the 'free' alternative takes hold, and whoever controls that gets the cost of running the infrastructure in advertisement fees.

If some company could set themselves up as a utility, and the mobile network operators were to pay that company to run the messaging app + infra, then it could be made to operate like a utility and nobodies data would have to be sold.

studius 5 years ago | | |

In the U.S., my experience with Whatsapp was that I created an account and never used it once to communicate with anyone, then I deleted it.

I've also withdrawn from social media.

The exception for now is HN, because it's more of a forum, even when bad information sometimes instates itself as reality for a large conversation, like a big gathering of fans talking about their team that will inevitably fail to win or perhaps a bad STD.

I learn what others are doing through direct and intentional communication, even if technology is used or if the information is second-hand. I don't text back or call back immediately, which my friends and family forgive, but it sometimes seems to hurt my relationships.

I still worry of dependence on large companies, big data companies gathering more information about me than I know myself, and the potential of out-of-control AIs. However, I attribute these in-part to my own paranoid thinking that use my memories of large company layoffs, privacy concerns raised in the tech community, and mostly fiction.

While I've come to the realization that the act to trying to be happy and successful is the very thing that makes me unhappy, and I just need to exist, maybe becoming better at whatever I'm naturally good at, while being here and now with those I'm with, giving my service to them... I still keep wasting time replying about things that don't matter.

ravingraven 5 years ago | |

>Twitter, Facebook and Google need to be treated like utilities [...]

Our generation is reinventing the wheel here, our ancestors had exactly the same problems with the power, water, gas, telephone and rail networks (at some point in time, all those were unregulated and privately owned) and did exactly that. Critical infrastructure needs to be heavily, regulated if not outright publicly owned.

alex_duf 5 years ago | | |

I think similarly to how europe has forced Banks to interoperate by making them write a protocol that can interoperate, governments need to force social media companies to write down a protocol and use it.

I like the analogy with utilities, but the issue is that we pay for electricity, but we don't pay for our usage of social media. As long as that's true we can difficulty do what I'm suggesting above

rorykoehler 5 years ago | | |

I wrote a tweet thread about this which I will post here for convenience:

Consolidation is a debt. You gain market cap at the cost of introducing systemic weakness and reducing broader market innovation. Once a company becomes a fundamental service they need to be regulated like a utility

(I will illustrate with Facebook)

Facebook can get the license to operate it but they also need to open up their API’s so others can build on top. These should become web standards governed by w3c.

Facebook is an interesting case as this system would remove all the perverse incentives driving their business model (no more ads). It would also crash their stock. That value hasn’t disappeared though, it has been pushed out to the edge nodes of their network (specifically the companies building on top of their API’s). My thesis is that this model will increase the overall pot while reducing the share the largest players have.

The knock-on effect of this is that investors will see this as the final outcome and be less incentivised to invest. That may be a problem as we don’t want to stop the emergence of billion scale companies altogether. Therefore a mechanism for the people to buy out the company at a fair legally agreed market value should be in place. This will stop crazy upsides and protect the undesirable downsides. The asset then becomes publicly owned but privately operated according to regulations.

AI would fall under the same model. With open API’s and standards anyone can get the data they need to build new AI companies. Especially feasible if we move towards self-sovereign identities and crypto methods of exchange.

To facilitate more small tech innovation we need to introduce a UBI. It will allow more people take risks with their time leading to more cottage innovation. In 100 years it will be a fundamental aspect of fiscal policy.

Additionally education needs to be refocused on making things. People are not equipped with the skills to build things. There is no better way to learn, grow and generate value. If we want a diversified small tech eco-system economy we need to focus on helping people develop the skills that make it possible.

fart32 5 years ago | | |

I don't like the idea of government having full control of these services.

I believe that we need fully decentralized system, much like the e-mail, but realtime and E2EE. Sadly, it seems to me that we're taking the opposite direction. Just few widely used messengers, all of them are centralized, some of them have E2EE, but who knows for how long - EU commission seems to like the idea of breaking in. No matter what their intentions are, I didn't sign up for that.

hkt 5 years ago | | |

Amen.

Not to forget the things that were in co-operative ownership, either.

emteycz 5 years ago | | |

Sure, let's make the public alternative, but I am strongly against taking over businesses.

Ygg2 5 years ago | | |

I disagree. Facebook, Twitter and Google are ephemeral utilities. They will probably be replaced by another company.

Privatizing them will just let someone else come along and Embrace, extend, extinguish them.

ksec 5 years ago | |

Blame Carrier. Modern SMS could have been great, but Carrier didn't want to lose the however minimal revenue they had with SMS. ( Not every countries has unlimited SMS across all Network and across the world )

Or Blame MSN, the Instant Messenger, when Microsoft refuse to admit defeat to the Smartphone platform.

So WhatsApp took over in EU ( I believe iMessages or SMS is still popular in France ), UK, SEA, Brazil, Hong Kong. Line in Japan and Taiwan, KakaoTalk in South Korea. Unsure about Australia and Canada. ( They use WhatsApp but not to the extent of countries listed above. )

And it is iMessages in US. I have no idea why that thing even took off. I have tried it dozen times over the years and every few months it has problem with message delivery, people in group not receiving any messages. Poor Searching capabilities etc....

Telegram has gain usage but for different kind of reason. And I dont see it ever being used in the same manner as WhatsApp.

So most of friends just clicked yes and share their Data. It is important to note despite the increasing hostility against FB on HN, and in Tech Circle, most people in the world seems to have no problem with it. I dont see WhatsApp going away any time soon.

Edit: How does this data sharing fit in with GDPR in EU?

stiray 5 years ago | | |

> How does this data sharing fit in with GDPR in EU?

It actually doesn't fit at all. As long as "payment" for usage is based on agreement to share personal data it is illegally obtained consent. Either they are ignoring their lawyers or they should fire them.

EDPS Opinion 4/2017 on the Proposal for a Directive on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content, 14 March 2017, p. 7.

"There might well be a market for personal data, just like there is, tragically, a market for live human organs, but that does not mean that we can or should give the market the blessing of legislation. One cannot monetize and subject a fundamental right to a simple commercial transaction, even if it is the individual concerned by the data who is a party to the transaction."

https://edps.europa.eu/sites/edp/files/publication/17-03-14_...

mrweasel 5 years ago | | |

I think iMessage took off, because you don't realise it's not SMS. Open the Messages app, type a message, if there's an iDevice in the other end, BOOM, iMessage.

Where iMessage fails is when the device in the other end isn't an Apple device, or perhaps the contact previously used an iPhone, then fallback to SMS is troublesome.

Most of my familymembers will send an "SMS"... except it's via iMessage, but nobody knows or cares.

rutthenut 5 years ago | | |

Carriers now looking to RCS as the messenger alternative, but if they price it like MMS, they will kill it. To do it cheaper, they have to give a large chunk of the service to Google, which gives Google the data mining opportunities :(

nosedrip 5 years ago | | |

GDPR still holds. The data can only be used in an aggregated from for advertising purposes within platform (facebook, insta, whatsapp) and not be sold to others. You have the right to have your data deleted upon request.

timvisee 5 years ago | |

Ditched it about 2 years ago. And man, it's so hard! Literally everybody uses it here in the Netherlands as well.

I'm getting strange looks every day when people hear I don't use the platform. It's horrendous.

I also really fear for the moment where I've to tell a nice girl I met that I don't use the platform, and that we should use X other platform instead. I can imagine that to be a letdown or to be weird. That's insane to me.

72deluxe 5 years ago | | |

I got used to the strange looks. I got the strange looks when people heard I didn't use Facebook. If you asked them to sign up to a website on the Internet that was popular in your circles just so you could be friends, they'd refuse, eg. "please sign up to basschat.co.uk because all my friends like bass guitars".

If their friendship relies on you installing an app on your phone, that's a very shallow friendship isn't it?

rimiform 5 years ago | | |

As someone who lives in the Netherlands, I feel your pain. I don't think I can get my contacts to really switch to something else, and even if I could, new ones would use WhatsApp anyway.

I think your fear depends strongly on how open-minded/techie the girl is, though: I've used Signal to communicate with all of my Tinder contacts, but I will admit people remark on how it feels like a 'drug deal'.

agd 5 years ago | |

> but the inertia is so great it's not possible.

It is possible, but difficult. You may lose access to some groups, but you can't have everything you want without some sacrifice.

Personally, I'm leaving WhatsApp. Yes, my family and friends will be a bit annoyed about the hassle of contacting me separately, but so be it.

a254613e 5 years ago | | |

That sort of behavior is very selfish, wouldn't you agree? You expect everyone to be annoyed and go through the hassle of contacting you, when you can't even keep one app installed to communicate with all of them.

And in a lot of countries you wouldn't lose access to "some groups" but you would lose access to ALL of them, from social, to every other group.

72deluxe 5 years ago | | |

What hassle would that be? They could send you SMS or call you.

Would they really find that too difficult? The mind boggles.

ruairispain 5 years ago | |

So many children using it. Wonder what the EU law is on data privacy and under age kids? Can under-18s legally sign this snooped data over to FB?

Hope some lawyers can stop this in its tracks. Otherwise Signal or some other service will get our business

Number157 5 years ago | | |

Don't know about kids but I think there is some requirement that people can meaningfully say no. Seems this is a breach of such a requirement.

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/refo...

MattJ100 5 years ago | | |

Last I checked WhatsApp minimum age was 16 (in the EU at least) to comply with the regulations.

Obviously that doesn't stop (many, many...) just using it anyway. But Facebook will happily turn a blind eye to this unless their hand is forced.

jwr 5 years ago | | |

Yes, usage by kids is a real problem. My child is one of only two in the class that doesn't use WhatsApp. All the others do. They have what they call a "class group", even though not everyone is there.

When I try to tell parents how much Facebook learns about their kids (their friends, networks, and by merging data from different sources: habits, school, frequented locations, etc), they just roll their eyes. The response is "well everybody is tracking us, who cares".

All this even though there is Signal, which works JUST FINE.

kar1181 5 years ago | | |

Children luckily are much more flexible and chop and change with the wind. It's the older folks once something is established it ends up becoming bedrock and super hard to change. Parents/Adults are busy if something 'works', there's a lot of resistance to changing it.

MattJ100 5 years ago | |

Yes, though I feel like people are finally (slowly) waking up to the problems here. Both the US and the EU are finally looking deeply into Facebook and other big tech.

I don't think politicians are going to solve the problem for us entirely, but a bunch of us have been working on technical solutions for decades and they aren't the entire answer either.

A little regulation combined with the right alternatives may go some way. I'm optimistic, though we have a very long road ahead.

etherealG 5 years ago | | |

Thanks for the positive outlook among many negative ones :) I hope we can find a good alternative in the market. Anyone know of alternatives that allow end to end encryption with group chat support so far?

_0w8t 5 years ago | |

In Norway WhatsUp is popular, but my dentist still use SMS and email, and so other businesses that I interact with. My son’s school has own app for communicating with parents and teachers use Teams to present online lectures. My son uses Discord to talk to friends, but I think he is an exception.

What is really problematic is Facebook monopoly for organizing any social activities or events. There are simply no alternatives especially among 30-50 years old. Like the saying, “What parents were afraid video game would do to children, Facebook did to parents.”

sireat 5 years ago | |

I can cut out WhatsApp from professional use no problem.

There is no way to cut WhatsApp from casual/family use in Europe.

Schools, kindergartens, mechanics, contractors, plumbers everyone uses it.

The problem is that WhatsApp is the easiest method to share photos on mobile.

If you do not have WhatsApp your plumber can not send you a picture of pipes they fixed. How do you work around that?

Other parents are using WhatsApp for organizing out of school activities. Again, there is no way to go full Stallman here...

helmholtz 5 years ago | |

I'm in Europe, and I'm doing it to the best extent that I can: no permissions allowed to whatsapp, no profile picture, no read receipts, no notifications, sending a standard message to all personal groups that 'lads, I'm moving to signal, ciao'.

Beyond that, I will not entertain personal messages on whatsapp, only work related. Each new person will be greeted with "Do you mind awfully if we use Signal?" Does this come off as self-important? Sure. But it helps that I don't care too much if it does. I had the same attitude quitting FB and Twitter too, I just don't need people that much. I don't have a 100 friends anyway. I have like 15 that I really want to keep in touch with. Those 15 will understand.

wdb 5 years ago | | |

What when other new person suggests Telegram? I have like four different messaging apps on my phone: WhatsApp, Telegram, Wechat and Link. Don’t need one more random app lol

mslack616 5 years ago | |

Not only Europe and UK, LATAM is also pretty much governed by WA. I remember one time I had a visit of some folks from Canada, they were very surprised that we used it as our main chat/communication app. When I asked why, they said "we don't hear from it (referring to WA) that much, we all just use iMessage" I guess in their context/community most people own iPhones.

etherealG 5 years ago | | |

Exactly, the usage of iOS in some countries is high, and that’s where WhatsApp didn’t win as the most used chat.

TheRealSteel 5 years ago | |

Yep, in Australia I had basically never used WhatsApp. It's barely a thing. (However, Facebook Messenger dominates there, so it's not as if the privacy situation is any better, Facebook Messenger is just a better app/website to use).

Here in the UK I am literally required to be on WhatsApp to live in the building I currently live in. I have no choice in this matter. It's just the default messaging service for everyone.

If you join any kind of club? WhatsApp group. If you want to talk to someone about renting a room or apartment? WhatsApp chat. Live with housemates? WhatsApp group.

Plus the whole fact that if I deleted facebook, I would cut off contact with my friends and family (I can't expect like 25 people all to switch messaging services just for me). I would lose access to my thousand-dollar Oculus VR headset (I hate them so much for buying and linking facebook and Oculus, and hope a better competing standalone headset comes out).

And don't forget, you can't use an Oculus Quest with a blank facebook account you made just for that - they actually check that you're really using the account and force you to verify with photos and ID.

They are the absolute epitome of evil. Facebook, in many ways, but particularly in regard to Oculus, is a moustache-twirlingly, cartoonishly evil organization.

Could I just never buy an Oculus? Hopefully one day. But when not just your hobbies, but also your study and skillset and career prospects are right in that industry, you swallow your pride and make a damn facebook account.

I was also required to be in facebook groups for university classes back when I was a student. I HAD to be on facebook to get a degree. And for an amateur theatre group I joined.

Not to mention everything going on with misinformation about elections, vaccines, etcetera etcetera.

Some of this stuff is now moving to Discord, which is probably better than anything owned by facebook, but being better than facebook is a damn low bar, and Discord is still ultimately a for-profit corporation that would sell your soul if it made them a dollar.

This "just stop using it" attitude you always get on Hacker News and reddit about facebook and their various messaging platforms baffles me. Do you people not have lives? Jobs? Friends? Family? If you (in or out of a pandemic lockdown) want to do just about anything outside your house, or a whole bunch of things inside it, you need to use Facebook services.

It sucks and I've love to stop supporting them but it's not like most of us have a realistic choice.

FalconSensei 5 years ago | | |

> This "just stop using it" attitude you always get on Hacker News and reddit about facebook and their various messaging platforms baffles me.

Unfortunately, seems that for many people on HN, HN is almost all their online social interaction, + tech people on signal/mastodon. Some don't seem to understand the concept of having family and friends who are not tech-savy (or even hate tech). Or understand the concept of social capital.

allarm 5 years ago | | |

> I can't expect like 25 people all to switch messaging services just for me

It’s not “switching”, they can start using another app and continue using whatsapp. I’ve done it with my family at least twice during the last 12 years, it was not that difficult.

Timpy 5 years ago | |

When I lived in Russia my doctor messaged me via WhatsApp. I'm American so I was a little culture shocked, I don't know if this is standard procedure or anything but it illustrates how ubiquitous WhatsApp is.

I'm so anti-Facebook now that it's a part of the way I identify myself, and for all that I can't delete it. I maintain contact with a friend in Germany via Whatsapp or Facebook messenger, and in this case it would be possible to use email (which is not nearly as casual as firing off a message in your spare moments) or some other service but it doesn't solve the problem about friend groups.

I have friend groups around the world that my only way to participate in is Facebook. I believe moving abroad is in my future again, and Messenger is detestably the only real way to keep up with my friends back home. Leaving Facebook and Messenger is like leaving a bar I hate; I'm only here for the people and I wish we could go somewhere else.

thw0rted 5 years ago | | |

I've lived in Germany for years and I do feel like, if we're going to stereotype people by nationality, they're one of the most privacy-sensitive groups you'll find. This is the country where, by law, if somebody picks up a (land-line) phone in the house, any other phone currently in use has to shut off. I'm not saying you can definitely convince that friend to get off WA / FB, but it's worth a shot.

(I don't know what to replace it with -- I mostly use Hangouts but it really feels like it's falling apart.)

FalconSensei 5 years ago | | |

For younger friends, I found that they can sometimes install a 2nd messenger, depending on how close you are. Of course, if they already use 2 or 3, you might need to use one that they have.

I would suggest to check if they use Telegram/Line/Kakao/Hangouts, or suggest it to them. They are all closed source, but at least is the lesser evil?

herbst 5 years ago | |

I am in europe, switzerland and plenty of friends in austria. Yes many of my social circle have whatsapp but none is using it exclusively as it was some years ago.

People have the choice and use it. Not sure what is holding other circles back?

I havent had whatsapp in 4+ years and only rarely have to fall back to SMS

dtech 5 years ago | | |

What is the alternative are your social circles using? SMS is the only alternative with a wide install base and the experience is inferior to WA,Telegram etc.

Tepix 5 years ago | | |

Do you have kids? What do they use?

gizzlon 5 years ago | |

Not possible? I think you mean that it's painful.

And it is, and I sympathize, but you and your family will not die or starve. It's possible.

I'm fed up an will remove fb and wa from my phone, at least. It will be painful

pjmlp 5 years ago | |

Also in Africa, most business live out from WhatsApp.

You will find WhatsApp contacts for any kind of communication, ordering a taxi, food, whatever.

Move out of WhatsApp, and it is going to be quite boring out in the Savannah.

GuB-42 5 years ago | |

In France, SMS is still the most common, even though it is declining. I think it is historic: we had cheap unlimited SMS plans before internet data plans were common.

WhatsApp is popular but not a monopoly. Not really something to celebrate since its main "competitor" and #1 instant messenger app is Facebook Messenger. Skype and Discord are also significant, and I expect iMessage to be important too.

worldsayshi 5 years ago | | |

But with SMS group messaging is rather cumbersome no?

submeta 5 years ago |

I am in the EU, and this is what I have been presented with:

„ By tapping Agree, you accept the new terms, which take effect on February 8, 2021. After this date, you’ll need to accept the new terms to continue using WhatsApp. You can also visit the Help Center if you would prefer to delete your account and would like more information. To learn more about how WhatsApp processes your data, read our updated privacy policy“ (with an Agree button underneath).

I could close the window. But there is a hard deadline apparently: Feb 8th.

F* you Facebook. I‘d rather stop using Whatsapp altogether.

Edit:

Will start using Signal app, and for the transition period I‘ll keep an old smartphone with a throwaway Sim card and WhatsApp installed on it to keep updates from absolutely necessary groups I need to be part of.

frereubu 5 years ago |

I'd love to give up WhatsApp, but network effects are key here. I tried moving my extended family off WhatsApp onto Signal a couple of years ago and it failed miserably because the app wasn't nearly as easy to use, and they had all their friends on Whatsapp. Has anyone here had any success moving a large group of people onto something like Signal or Telegram? If so, do you have any tips?

muzani 5 years ago |

"As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies. We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them, to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services and their offerings. This includes helping improve infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our Services or theirs are used, securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities. Facebook and the other companies in the Facebook family also may use information from us to improve your experiences within their services such as making product suggestions (for example, of friends or connections, or of interesting content) and showing relevant offers and ads. However, your WhatsApp messages will not be shared onto Facebook for others to see. In fact, Facebook will not use your WhatsApp messages for any purpose other than to assist us in operating and providing our Services."

Definition of Services: "all of our apps, services, features, software, and website (together, “Services”) unless specified otherwise."

Ads are the bulk of Facebook's "Services" but it's remarkable how they avoid saying it.

silasdavis 5 years ago |

As others have mentioned increasingly small businesses (like my outdoor exercise class) and loose communities (like my child's school year parent's group) rely on WhatsApp. persuading these loose connections to move away from WhatsApp for one's own benefit is almost impossible.

Sacrificing access to these social amenities on the altar of incremental privacy invasion and power transfer to an unaccountable basically malign organisation is hard to stomach. And rather inconsequential taken in isolation.

What technical and legislative means might be effective in limiting the network effect around group chats? For example requiring in law that groups be accessible to an open federated hub and spoke messaging protocol to allow messages to flow from syndicated groups established on other systems (like matrix or signal or whatever) to WhatsApp groups.

What technical and legal prior art is there here? I would be interested to hear some ideas.

anupamchugh 5 years ago |

Such a sham that WhatsApp's privacy policy page still says:

We joined Facebook in 2014. WhatsApp is now part of the Facebook family of companies. Our Privacy Policy explains how we work together to improve our services and offerings, like fighting spam across apps, making product suggestions, and showing relevant offers and ads on Facebook. Nothing you share on WhatsApp, including your messages, photos, and account information, will be shared onto Facebook or any of our other family of apps for others to see, and nothing you post on those apps will be shared on WhatsApp for others to see.

This is hypocrisy!!

Edit: The word "onto" in the privacy policy is so dubious. They said we aren't sharing anything onto Facebook. Probably it didn't mean they weren't snooping our data.

extropy 5 years ago | |

IMO it reads they will not be sharing any WhatsApp messages on your Facebook profile publicly (for others to see).

But says it will be used (shared) internally to target ads and product suggestions.

Very weasely indeed.

boredatworkme 5 years ago |

Can someone help and dumb this down a little bit for me so that I can then explain to some of my friends who couldn't care too much about this change in policy?

For example: What should be my response to questions like: . "What kind of data can now be shared with FB versus what was shared earlier (if any)?"

. "Whatsapp chats are end to end encrypted so how can my data be shared with FB?"

. "As an individual, how different is Whatsapp sharing my data with FB for ad/tracking purposes versus what other networks such as Google do to serve ads? Let's say I'm interested in ice-cream and I chat with someone about it and a couple of days later, I get ads about ice-cream, but I choose to ignore those ads, then how am I impacted/affected?"

pkamb 5 years ago |

The part that creeps me out the most is WhatsApp’s aggressiveness towards getting your Contacts. Other apps want them but WhatsApp hardly works without the permission.

Why hasn’t Apple introduced a private/segmented Contacts permission like they have Photos, Location, etc.?

eps 5 years ago | |

This has been a very long time due.

An ability to give untrustworthy software an access to a sandboxed blank copy of Contacts would've been very useful.

As a side note, Telegram is the same as WhatsApp. You can't start a chat on a fresh install unless you give it an access to the contacts. There's no way to manually add in-app contacts. Given how "pro-privacy" they are supposed to be, this was rather disconcerting to see.

pvtmert 5 years ago | | |

You can, just deny the request and add contacts in Telegram. At least in android, I denied contact list and manually adding relevant ones to telegram.

patall 5 years ago | | |

But you can start at new chat in WhatsApp via https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=XXXXXXX

Does not work for me in Firefox, but in Chrome on Android, I can start a new chat without access to the contacts. I agree that it is weird though!

kome 5 years ago | | |

"There's no way to manually add in-app contacts."

False, I do it ALL the time.

timvisee 5 years ago | |

In fact they grab your whole contact list, and according to the updated policy, they share it with the other Facebook Companies. So even if you refuse to use the app, it's still very likely that your contact information will end up on their servers because you're friends are probably using the app.

grandchild 5 years ago | |

FWIW: I've been using whatsapp without access to my contacts with the help of this little app: "Open in Whatsapp"

https://github.com/subhamtyagi/openinwa

You can enter a number in that app and it will launch a conversation with them in whatsapp. I think it makes use of the API mentioned in sibling comments.

twsted 5 years ago | |

My question, too.

utf_8x 5 years ago |

Once again - Signal[0] as an alternative. It's fully Open-Source (including the backend) and their crypto is public and independently verified[1][2][3]...

[0] https://signal.org/en/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Encryption_p...

[2] https://threatpost.com/signal-audit-reveals-protocol-cryptog...

[3] https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1013.pdf [PDF]

OJFord 5 years ago |

> [The spokeswoman] said there will be no change in how WhatsApp shares provides data with Facebook for non-business chats and account data.

That sounds a lot less alarming, in the third to last paragraph, than the headline or first few paragraphs?

Don't get me wrong, I ditched Facebook years ago, and wouldn't use WhatsApp but for family and a pre-Corona club I wouldn't have (much at all) contact with otherwise. That quote just makes me much less annoyed than my initial reaction was. Which is of course her job, but assuming it's true...

dheera 5 years ago | |

WeChat banned me for an hour for violating the ToS, and it wasn't clear what I violated.

I use LineageOS for privacy reasons, and intercept various things I consider to be privacy violations.

I very much disagree with these ways of operating, for systems that monopolize human-to-human communication. We live in a bunch of walled garden communication apps, people don't use any open systems like e-mail and phone anymore, and those walled garden apps bully us into giving them data? They are all starting to behave the same way.

ev1 5 years ago | | |

You're using quite literally a spy app that does continuous root and tampering/safetynet/etc checking.

croes 5 years ago | |

Could simply mean they are already sharing all data with Facebook.

sedatk 5 years ago | | |

Yep, it's old news. https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/25/whatsapp-to-share-user-dat...

bilal4hmed 5 years ago |

WhatsApp has such a strong network effect, that a wholesale move off is very difficult. I asked my immediate family to move to Signal and they agreed.

Then came the question - can we talk to people on whatsapp using signal because friends, aunts, uncles, cousins who live international all live on whatsapp. Moving your network, their network and their networks network becomes quite the task.

ummonk 5 years ago | |

While the network effects are there, I do think messaging networks are less durable than social media networks, because you can take your contact list with you across networks.

throwbacktictac 5 years ago | |

Naively it seems like the problem that will make progress at both ends with the right spark. As I image it, soon enough someone else will have already convinced part of your network to make the move.

People, in general, don't have a qualm about installing another app when it's recommended by someone they trust.

bilal4hmed 5 years ago | | |

Hopefully, it is however a slow process. In India, whatsapp is so dominant, I cant imagine what it would take for them to move to anything else

Zelphyr 5 years ago |

It has been said that companies that build rely too heavily on the public, free API’s of another service are doomed when that service decides to monetize those API’s. See, for example, API users of Google Maps.

I think we are now at the point where this applies to individuals. If a person or group of people rely too heavily on a single free service then they’re going to feel pain when that service finally decides to monetize.

There are no free lunches. All these “free” products out there that seem great have Venture Capital investors waiting until the day that the service reaches a critical mass and they can flip the cash-generating switch.

soupson 5 years ago |

This is some mafia shit. They're holding users data hostage behind a click-through acceptance of their altered terms. You can either pray they don't alter the deal further, or get the fuck out, abandoning your chat history and social connections.

blackcats 5 years ago | |

Mafia is more ethical

f430 5 years ago | |

They are fucking gangsters thats what!

Tricked people into giving up info they trade like commodities so they can buy more useless crap in life.

Fortunately, it is generally expected Harris/Biden administration will come down hard on these companies.

then again they are wall street people so we will have to see if there's a recession (The simpsons predicted a global recession after Trump administration)

alexandrerond 5 years ago |

For people looking to switch to Signal without Google Play services on Android (apk installation), the best way to fix the websocket battery drain is this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/ewp99j/disable_webs...

Unlike Telegram, WhatsApp, Element etc. which work fine without Google, Signal devs have repeteadly refused to make improvements to the "always-awake" mode which happily eats 40% battery.

MayeulC 5 years ago | |

I either do not have this issue, or it doesn't show up for me on the battery usage page. Are you sure it is widespread? (I have no GAPPS, LineageOS 17.1 -- on Galaxy S4).

With that said, there is some work being done towards a FLOSS replacement for firebase [1]. Gotify can be used as a backend [2], among others ([3] too, I think). Not ready for prime-time, but almost, and development started pretty recently (mid-December).

[1] #openpush:bubu1.eu (https://matrix.to/#/!ajsXAmvYUOjfmMJnGJ:bubu1.eu)

[1] https://github.com/UnifiedPush/UP-spec/blob/main/specificati...

[2] https://github.com/gotify/android/tree/unifiedpush

[3] https://github.com/NoProvider2Push/android

Krasnol 5 years ago | |

It seems to be some very specific bug as neither me nor my contacts seen this happen on their devices. We've been using it at work quite often with people having different devices. On mine it shows 2% battery drain atm.

balozi 5 years ago |

What I don't get is this, there are real-life people working at these companies. What are the managers and developers at Facebook/Whatsapp thinking? Are there hi-fives in the hallways to celebrate the impending win?

I have worked on many a project in my time, and I can't think of a single instance where we knowingly screwed over users or clients. Our teams' goals have always been to make the product better. What's going on here? I am honestly curious.

mLuby 5 years ago | |

Semi-intentional compartmentalization could explain it.

  Ads: we could increase revenue if we had access to WhatsApp data, but that's Product and Legal's call.

  Product: Ads asked us to access WhatsApp data, but we're just facilitating between them and Legal.

  Legal: Ads and Product asked us to change the policy to allow access to WhatsApp data.

Nobody being willfully malicious, just not asking certain questions, and the gaps between departments obfuscate the whole thing.

TedDoesntTalk 5 years ago | |

> single instance where we knowingly screwed over users or clients.

Monetization often trumps customer's best interests. It certainly has at most companies where I've worked (but not all).

trident5000 5 years ago | |

You have a private conversation with the team manager in some office and explain that bonuses are on the line. And then it gets done.

trulyrandom 5 years ago |

Maybe these privacy policy changes are not super scary yet (honestly, it's difficult to even read the thing since its littered with legalese traps that confuse me). And at least end-to-end encryption still seems to be on the table, but where are they headed? WhatsApp is so easy to use that most people will just click "Agree" and trade their privacy for convenience.

Messaging in the Netherlands almost universally runs on WhatsApp these days. Nobody uses text messages anymore, understandably, but somehow we all ended up on a platform run by Facebook. "Whatsappen" (messaging on Whatsapp) and "appje" (short for WhatsApp message) are even official words now. Need to contact a friend? Send an appje. Need support from a company? Send an appje. Need to send a message to your team at work? Send an appje in the group chat.

Has anyone managed to get their contacts to switch to Signal? I can't even get tech-savvy people to switch, since they always seem to find some minor annoyance that makes them instantly dismiss the app and go back to WhatsApp.

teekert 5 years ago |

WA is so deeply ingrained in the Dutch society, we even have this all over the place: [0]

At this point it's just a lost cause. I have some friends on Signal and use NextCloud talk (my own server, yay, still waiting for federated chat to chat to other servers), but so many "official" things are on WA, children's birthday parties, school announcements, sports related announcements, neighborhood announcements. We are really too dependent on WA, and you know, based on WA's original promises this wouldn't really be a problem. Now it is, although I fear I'm one of the very few that sees it that way.

[0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=whatsapp+buurtpreventie&t=ffsb&iax...

jraby3 5 years ago | |

Same here in Israel.

Messages from daycare, zoom class info for kids, alerts, are all connected to WhatsApp.

There is no way to avoid using it. Wish there was something I could do.

teekert 5 years ago | | |

Yeah, I do hope the EU (and your government) do(es) something about this, I feel betrayed because WA became dominant here under very different terms and conditions.

FB: "Yeah we are just going to buy this platform with a privacy focus that everybody loves and grew dependent on and turn it into FaceBook." I don't even understand how that is legal.

wheresmycraisin 5 years ago |

Anyone know of a way to backup everything from whatsapp, including video and voice messages? I have 5 years of messages between me and my wife on whatsapp i'd like to preserve some how before moving off.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5 years ago | |

Video and voice should simply be on the "shared storage" ("/sdcard/" - not an actual SD card) on Android.

There should also be a copy of the messages database, and I'm sure there is some open source app to decrypt it somewhere.

asadhaider 5 years ago | |

Seems to be possible unless you live in Germany, just follow this guide [0]. If in a EU country, I wonder if you could also submit a data subject access request (I'm not too familiar on GDPR).

[0] https://faq.whatsapp.com/android/chats/how-to-save-your-chat...

marton78 5 years ago | | |

Why wouldn't it be possible if you live in Germany?

icefo 5 years ago |

Didn't the eu explicitly forbid this ? I wonder how their lawyer found a loophole. Or did they did the math and the fine is cheaper than the gains ?

Abishek_Muthian 5 years ago |

My friends & relatives in India are outright offended when I say that I don't use WhatsApp and so I cannot join their groups.

Businesses here have started using WhatsApp as an alternative to SMS, email for sending spam to important package tracking information (without prior permission).

But I see this as the best opportunity to convert some of my contacts to Signal/Email as this stays in mainstream news for a while(but quite sure that almost all of them have clicked 'Agree' to T&C banner showed on WhatsApp when they woke up morning without giving it a thought and I'm certain that's exactly what FB intended).

I do not know whether to feel fear, sadness or shame on the type of power WhatsApp/Facebook holds only my people.

Karupan 5 years ago | |

In the same boat here. I really want to get rid of WhatsApp, but almost all my contacts exclusively use it for chat and updates.

satellite2 5 years ago |

Couldn't the EU force them to standardize the protocol and to interoperate with other client/servers?

With WhatsApp becoming the new defacto sms / mms it would make sense.

Could they even reuse pieces of the legislation that made it happen for usb chargers?

croes 5 years ago | |

You mean the signal protocol.

upofadown 5 years ago | | |

The protocol isn't really the root issue with interoperability. It's identity. As a start you should be able to easily use your verified identities across the different systems.

Signal would probably be a poor base for an interoperability standard. Which flavour would you use? Signal Messenger, Matrix, OMEMO and allegedly WhatsApp all use the Signal protocol but can not interoperate at all.

Signal Protocol is also more complex than it needs to be. It has two levels of forward secrecy for example. It is basically all the crypto geekery of the last few decades packed into a instant messaging protocol. Something intended as an interconnection standard should be as simple as possible.

seesawtron 5 years ago |

Do people still believe that Facebook doesn't collect data from the apps owned by them? Hell even the apps that is Facebook SDK send user data to Facebook even when you don't use facebook owned apps:

https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9941-how_facebook_tracks_you_on_...

blackcats 5 years ago | |

They know the Facebook Mafia does, but non of their network is moving to alternatives

croes 5 years ago | |

They don't care

nickcw 5 years ago |

How about pay $1 / year to opt out of all data sharing?

I foolishly installed the Facebook app on Android for a while. When I asked for a data dump from Facebook I was amazed at the amount of data it had stolen from my phone, including full contacts list. It sounds like that is exactly what Facebook are planning with WhatsApp.

I'd pay $1 / year to opt out of that and be the customer rather than the product.

judge2020 5 years ago | |

$1 a year is super low. YouTube values their ads at approximately $12 a month[0] - FB can’t be much less.

(E: 12, not 18. 18 is for families)

0: https://YouTube.com/premium

d1sxeyes 5 years ago | | |

YouTube values the absence of their ads at $12/mo.

If I make $1/mo/per user from adverts, but my conversion rate is 1/12 at $12/mo, then I'm making $23 for every 12 users.

Doesn't mean I make $12/user/month.

wruza 5 years ago | | |

Few years ago we discussed these numbers on a pretty popular (top 5 of its kind) local pic-and-discussion forum. Devs said that an average user brings around $2 in a year (including those using adblock, etc). I sent them around $8 and they turned off any ads for my account forever. I could just continue using ad blocking, but they made that “hey you’re using” header that annoyed me on mobile, where it is hard to “pick an element”. Of course their income/user ratio is not comparable to youtube’s one, but they meet their ends well, and also have much much lower megabytes/user ratio. In infra costs they may be even more profitable per user than youtube (just a blind guess).

rohan1024 5 years ago |

The sooner they take such actions the better it is for everyone in the long run. Someone somewhere will come up with an alternative that is better than anything we have today. And sorry but Signal is not the pinnacle of messaging.

I like what Matrix is doing but they are far away from becoming mainstream. Within 2-3 years a new platform will rise and it will fix flaws of existing messaging apps. This will then be followed by social media but it might take another 6-7 years to fix that mess.

swiley 5 years ago | |

God dammit we've had standards that work. Apple and Google are responsible for killing all of the decent messaging protocols by censoring the clients from their app stores.

When smartphones came out people modified IRC with support for push brokers and message replay but because of app stores this means push brokers for community maintained clients have to be maintained by the individual volunteer paying (yes! paying, shut up about the free dev accounts they don't allow you to send push notifications) for the "privilege" of submitting the app (meaning they have low to zero availability.) The relay Mozilla maintains allows servers and users to choose who brokers push messages but Apple and Google screw over their users for profit and this is the result.

Smartphone app stores have made IM unusable.

themacguffinman 5 years ago | | |

This is a stretch for Android at least, Google charges a one-time $25 fee for a Play Store developer account and provides unlimited push notifications for no extra charge.

twobitshifter 5 years ago | |

I just installed element today (the new name for riot) It’s interesting and may have some features like rooms that will build interest outside of just being an IM tool. I do miss the days of AIM/Jabber/Google Talk/ where everything just worked. Bringing that experience to phones should be the goal rather than jumping from service to service.

My friends from Europe and Brazil are locked into WhatsApp, my American friends seem to prefer FB messenger. They’re really using 2 versions of the same company’s products which are “incompatible” at this point. Facebook could make them compatible with one another and with each other only OR they could do the socially beneficially thing and use an open protocol. Unless employees at FB push for this, they’re likely to take the former route.

vinay_ys 5 years ago |

I don't give access to my contacts to any app. And I don't give any access permissions to Signal. Signal must make it easy to invite friends without giving access to contacts. A simple Copy invite message with a mobile install link would be great – so that I can paste it into whatever groups I'm on and as my status message.

bowaggoner 5 years ago | |

I respect that perspective, but did you know that Signal uses a private protocol so that your contacts are never sent to their servers?

https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/

WA 5 years ago |

I mean, it’s annoying, but I’m at the point where I wonder if it does matter at all. I don’t let WhatsApp access my contacts or photos. I tried very hard for a long time to not give Facebook my phone number. But if any of my contacts agrees to this, my phone number is given to Facebook (without my consent). So, what are my options really? Delete my account? And then what? My number will be given to them anyways.

chalst 5 years ago | |

I don't have a big problem with Facebook having my number, or knowing who 95% of the people are who have me in their contacts. But it is important to me that the contents of my contacts database is private so that I can be trusted by the other 5%.

generalizations 5 years ago |

Everyone is comparing signal vs. telegram, but what about element? Far as I can tell, that might actually be secure.

https://element.io/

krick 5 years ago | |

Is this Riot rebranded? Huh, it seems I'm out of the loop.

Yeah, Matrix is great. I was probably among the first people to install Riot, but the grim reality is nobody (well, one geek-friend of mine and his wife) uses Matrix. Look, even I was surprised when you mentioned "Element": thought it must be some new messenger I didn't hear about...

But I'd surely rather like people to promote Element here, not Signal.

akvadrako 5 years ago | |

To give an idea, I think Matrix (and hence Element) borrowed the e2e design from Signal. So if they did it right it should be secure.

I demoed it recently as a Slack alternative and it's not very user friendly. Our groups ended up just using Signal.

ssivark 5 years ago | | |

I’m curious in what way you find Matrix/Element not user friendly. (Since I know people who would claim the opposite)

intricatedetail 5 years ago | |

No messenger is secure. You never know if the code that is being run is the same as reviewed. If you want true privacy, then you need to encrypt messages yourself (with e.g. PGP)

7v3x3n3sem9vv 5 years ago | | |

Signal messenger uses reproducible builds. You can compare the source code to the app that's published to the app store to confirm that they're being honest.

I don't know if any other competitors who do the same. As Signal messages are end-to-end encrypted, Even if their servers were compromised, your messages would still be secure. As they use a rotating key, unlike manually using PGP, even if one of the keys was intercepted, they would not be able to decrypt any of your other messages. Using PGP, if someone steals your private key, all your messages are now vulnerable.

https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/

29083011397778 5 years ago | | |

Wouldn't building (& hosting) the server, building the client, and communicating only with accounts using your server be just as good?

Note that this isn't just theoretical - there are governments using Matrix, but not necessarily federating with other instances.

generalizations 5 years ago | | |

Ok, fair enough. I overstated it. I'm just wondering why it's not being discussed here.

a0-prw 5 years ago |

I use Signal to chat with my family and friends. I use sms or an in-house service to communicate with colleagues. I only use WhatsApp with my gf. I don't have fb or Instagram. What effect does this policy change have on me? Obviously, fb will receive some data on me and my communications with my gf, connecting me to her (extensive) network on fb, but how worried should I be ?

mtrycz2 5 years ago | |

You should be worried for your gf, probably. And all the other millions of non technical users.

oli5679 5 years ago |

The founder of Whatsapp

(1) claims that Facebook promised Whatsapp would not be monetised, and that Facebook and and Whatsapp's data would not be combined. This information was also provided to European antitrust regulators

(2) missed out on $850 stock option grants vesting by quitting early over disputes with Facebook about monetisation strategy

(3) promoted #deletefacebook on Whatsapp following the Cambridge Anlalytica scandal

(4) Donated $50m to the non-for-profit alternative, Signal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Acton

croes 5 years ago | |

(1) was claimed by the founder of Oculus too. They are either naive or Facebook simply lies.

PestoDiRucola 5 years ago | |

I mean, according to his Wikipedia page he's worth $2.85B so he's not really hurting.

headsupftw 5 years ago | | |

$850MM relative to $2.85B is still a lot of money.

ericmay 5 years ago | | |

Sure but still at least he is standing on his principles here.

samfisher83 5 years ago | |

Why did he think Mark wanted to pay 19 billion for whatsapp? To not make any money.

Lammy 5 years ago | | |

WhatsApp was an existential threat to Facebook in every country besides the US. They had the data to prove it, obtained from real users via FB's Onavo VPN service. Facebook Messenger 3.0 was to WhatsApp as Google+ was to Facebook (the product), and when the usage numbers weren't going the right way they gave up and bought them out before the gulf got even wider.

Textual messaging is a low-data-use (accessible to the cheapest phones with the smallest data packages) entrypoint to capture a person's social network so you can have other opportunities to capture them again and again with other services in the future. Facebook saw India as an especially huge burgeoning market at that time (hence Internet-dot-org / Free Basics), and afaik WhatsApp is ubiquitous there.

joshspankit 5 years ago | | |

Maybe he thought he was one of the only ones to “get through” to Mark, and that Mark’s verbal agreements meant something

BatteryMountain 5 years ago |

Facebook and by extension Whatsapp needs to be regulated.

Also, I'd be happy to pay for Whatsapp but then they need to isolate themselves from Facebook/third parties and slow down with the feature creep. It works great for what it is. If they mutate the thing further, it's going to become a gross/convuluted app that tries to cater to all use cases.

marricks 5 years ago |

Did they really do this just as the election was being certified? No one outside of tech will be talking about this for a while...

pmontra 5 years ago |

I'm in the EU. WhatsApp showed me a screen about new term of service right now. There were two buttons, Agree and Not Now. I tapped Not Now, it kept working.

microtonal 5 years ago | |

Interesting. I am in the EU as well and got the new terms of service screen. Only an Agree button, but I could avoid agreeing (I hope) by clicking the cross (X) at the top of the dialog.

pmlnr 5 years ago | | |

A/B testing, probably.

hutattedonmyarm 5 years ago | | |

Same here!

Ballas 5 years ago | |

Yes, but if you don't accept before 1 July, you will have to find another solution for your messaging needs.

ssss11 5 years ago | |

I’m in Australia and just recorded it. There was Agree and an X in the corner... I X’d and it kept working.

Cocktail 5 years ago | |

Same story here, i think i saw a deadline mentioned at tue bottom

A_No_Name_Mouse 5 years ago | |

I'm in the EU and clicked agree before I realised the implications. Now I want to withdraw my consent, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do this. Am I overlooking something or is that not possible (which would violate GDPR)?

latk 5 years ago | | |

They were not asking for consent in the meaning used by the GDPR. They are merely "asking" you to agree to updated terms, i.e. their contract with you.

GDPR allows processing of data under various legal bases. They use consent (opt-in) only for things like accessing your camera. For sharing data with other Facebook services, they rely on a "legitimate interest" (opt-out) instead. In theory, you might be able to object to processing under a legitimate interest, but they make it rather cumbersome. Which processing activities they perform under which legal basis is actually well-explained in the privacy policy, if you manage to find the correct section (it has a rather labyrinthine structure).

Funes- 5 years ago |

This would be the perfect time for the team behind Signal to make registration through username available, for those who don't want to give their phone number away but would otherwise make the switch. Think about it: competitor gets a closer grip on its users' privacy, while we fortify it instead.

One can dream, right?

01acheru 5 years ago |

I finally deleted WhatsApp, even if here in Europe it’s the ubiquitous messaging application and maybe things will be a little complicated at first. I should’ve done this long ago, the same day it was bought by Facebook.

Anyway we have so many ways to communicate with one another that if someone wants to reach me he can, probably it will be less a big deal than what most of us think.

If all of your tech savvy friends disappear from WhatsApp in a matter of a couple of weeks maybe some other people might follow... I kind of hope in a domino effect right now, let’s see how it plays out!

codegladiator 5 years ago |

Is there a possibility that we (us at hn, pro-privacy) are all just paranoid and the worst case scenarios we can imagine are never really going to happen ?

I am a heavy advocate of privacy and the main driving factor for these conversations in my friend/family circle. Trying to get people to a different platform since 2 years now (they did and came back), so now I wonder if I am just wasting time really for a apocalypse that was never going to happen.

bitcharmer 5 years ago | |

The worst case scenario has been happening for years. Didn't Snowden teach us about how these platforms are a gold mine for shady government agencies and oppressive regimes?

rusk 5 years ago | | |

And let’s not forget organised crime. It’s not beyond reason that some of the larger organisations could get their fingers into this.

I think in Europe we are more aware of these issues because shady organisations in the past have been able to get their hands on government files and use them for nefarious purposes.

blackbrokkoli 5 years ago | |

I mean the advent of business computing was very literally the systematic eradication of 6 million Jews.

IBM's custom designed punch cards and the absolute openness of census records (church books are rarely encrypted) was the only reason the third Reich was ever able to census all European Jews and then systematically deport them in any reasonable time frame.

That is obviously very different from new WhatsApp TOS, but this incredibly prevalent opinion of "Well, nothing really bad regarding privacy and tech did actually happen, right?" irks me a lot.

jjcon 5 years ago | | |

I’m pretty fricken sure they would have worked around not having that specific punch card tech - it’s like saying 9/11 wouldn’t have happened if Linux didn’t exist because the taliban used Linux systems

personlurking 5 years ago |

So, the part below is new, or not new? And what is "user content" exactly? All messages, images and audio?

_______

>WhatsApp, according to the App Store, reserves the right to collect:

Purchases

Financial information

Location

Contacts

User content

Identifiers

Usage data and

Diagnostics

croes 5 years ago | |

Yes

bibelo 5 years ago |

I was barely awake, and saw the popup this morning (I'm in EU) and with my sticky eyes, I couldn't see how I could send a message without accepting the popup

So does anyone know if there's a way to revert the agreement?

cesarb 5 years ago | |

For me, there was also a clearly labeled "not now" option right next to the "agree" button. I quickly clicked that "not now", option (I didn't have at that moment the time to review a pair of long documents), and now I have no idea how to make the popup show again (so I can read these documents). I hope this doesn't mean my account will be banned in a few weeks.

sneak 5 years ago |

Wasn't that Facebook's main promise when they purchased WhatsApp?

Forget whether or not they can, legally; if I recall correctly they explicitly promised not to.

People who work for those without integrity are baffling to me.

saos 5 years ago |

I stupidly accepted this. How can I decline it?

Edit: Just did a comparison of all the data collected by Whatsapp, Signal and Telegram

Telegram - https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/telegram-messenger/id686449807 WhatApp - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/whatsapp-messenger/id310633997 Signal - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/signal-private-messenger/id874...

WhatApp collect a stupid amount of data. Its time for me to shift.

nutanc 5 years ago |

Everyone here seems to be mentioning how they want to move but cannot move because of the network effects.

Even for me, my kids school sends updates on WhatsApp. Bank also sends its updates on WhatsApp etc. But I have avoided using WhatsApp for these purposes. And so far I have survived. Because almost all businesses don't rely exclusively on WhatsApp. Atleast in my case. They send emails, SMS messages etc. It's not as clean as WhatsApp. But everything has its pros and cons.

If we really want to move, then I think we can move. It will be a little harder to start with. But then something better will hopefully come across. Tech has always filled gaps which come up.

solnyshok 5 years ago |

ouch. first I thought that it is about FBI, then realized it is about Facebook. They should merge sometime in future, anyway.

bigiain 5 years ago | |

Some argue this has already happened...

m3at 5 years ago |

Exactly the same thing played out for Oculus, so it we can't say that it's surprising. It is sad nonetheless

sharken 5 years ago | |

Yeah it's a sad development. On the other hand it might mean less Facebook dominance which is a win in my book.

croes 5 years ago | | |

Don't count on that, most people don't care.

pavel_lishin 5 years ago |

The WhatsApp app on my phone already has permissions to access my contacts, so presumably they're already on WhatsApp's servers - how would I go about removing this information before February 8th?

rpastuszak 5 years ago |

Signal and Telegram seem to be the most commonly mentioned alternatives here. Which one do you prefer and why?

Barrin92 5 years ago | |

Signal. Open source, non-profit, very good privacy defaults. Telegram seems even worse than whatsapp to be honest because they don't even have encryption on by default.

AndriyKunitsyn 5 years ago | | |

Telegram always has encryption, just no end-to-end encryption by default. This is a privacy/convenience trade-off. When chatting about groceries/memes/latest Netflix releases, you don't really need E2EE that much, and chats without E2EE are synced to all devices in Telegram, including a fully-supported desktop app.

narrationbox 5 years ago |

A while back I wrote about this

https://medium.com/@kloudtrader/reducing-whatsapp-digital-fo...

Not sure if it still applies to the latest version of Android and WhatsApp but it might help. However it only mitigates certain real-time tracking and contact discovery, not to mention switching profiles is somewhat of a hassle.

lwhi 5 years ago |

FB: If we're not allowed to track you across the web, we'll use your data captured via our properties to make more money from you via targetted advertising.

Users: whatever.

seesawtron 5 years ago | |

fun fact: they also collect data from apps they don't own but which use Facebook SDK. eg. Opera, Duolingo, Kayak and tons of others. So deleting Facebook app and Facebook account doesn't do much as you think it's does.

trashburger 5 years ago | | |

Good thing Adaway blocks Facebook hosts on a system level so I don't have to worry about the Facebook SDK so long as I keep my hosts list updated.

Totomi 5 years ago |

Ok, here it goes.

I like Whatsapp, and this change seems in line with what Whatsapp always has been. Of course I'm always wary of advancements, ready to uninstall it if really bad news arrive, but in general Whatsapp has been respectful of its users, especially those that are privacy concerned.

They hired a lead developer from Signal to implement E2E encryption, its functionality is almost completely transperent, which reduces the need to inspect source code to understand functionality. The most severe of privacy criticisms have amounted to "Facebook knows who you message and at what times you message", which is a very good position for a 2B user platform to be in, since it doesn't read message contents.

I have tried Signal, but I cannot recommend it to family (yet), since I don't find what they do with metadata harmful, it's just a price to pay for the otherwise free app, like advertisement. Anyone who has recommended Signal so far sounded like an inflexible Stallman fundamentalist. I reserve my voice for other more serious incidents, if there is a successful warrant for message contents or if there is ad targetting based on message contents, then I will start sounding the horns, but for now: Meh.

MarcellusDrum 5 years ago | |

> its functionality is almost completely transperent, which reduces the need to inspect source code to understand functionality.

Can you explain more? Without the ability to see the source code, how can you confirm that e2e encryption is actually being used correctly?

ivanstame 5 years ago |

I will stop using the fucking app. It is time to change tech industry and to actually charge for a product other then to sell the users. Let's stop this!

scotty79 5 years ago |

On one hand I never read through any TC or license and never agreed to anything in them. I'm just clicking buttons to be able to use the app. Often I don't even read the text on the button. And I think most people behave this way.

On the other hand as tech savvy person I have no expectation about what happens to the data that I enter into the app beyond expecting it not to be immediately published for everyone to see unless that's what the app explicitely does.

I know data I entered might be viewed by unspecified number of people all over the world during normal operation, and that this data might be published at some point in the future. I'm hoping none of the unknown people that can view my data knows me personally or uses this data against me.

There's no end to end encryption hosted service I currently trust to do what they say. If I were to transfer information that I don't want under no circumstances to go public I'd have to research what wikileaks is now using for communication.

That's the contract I'm operating under. I think it's a good balance because it's aligned with physical reality.

FabHK 5 years ago |

Anyone have any opinion why Wire didn't take of? E2E, good functionality (chat, group chat, video chat, voice chat, GIF images emojis yadda yadda yadda), multi-device, clients for all major platforms (eg for the iPad, unlike WhatsApp), open source, phone number or email as identifier, audited, Swiss/EU servers, no profiling, no ads...

Can't find any downside, really - except that few people are on it.

thekyle 5 years ago | |

Seems to cost around $5 per month according to their website. It's already a tough sell when getting someone to switch to another free chat app.

croes 5 years ago | | |

That's Wire Pro for teams, Wire Personal is free.

nabla9 5 years ago |

Zuckerberg while waiting to see if FTC would clear the deal: “We are absolutely not going to change plans around WhatsApp and the way it uses user data. WhatsApp is going to operate completely autonomously,”

>https://www.latimes.com/business/la-xpm-2014-feb-24-la-fi-tn...

>The WhatsApp acquisition has raised concerns among some users that WhatsApp would become, well, more like Facebook. Zuckerberg took the opportunity to quiet those concerns, saying WhatsApp would continue to operate independently from Facebook.

>“We are absolutely not going to change plans around WhatsApp and the way it uses user data. WhatsApp is going to operate completely autonomously,” Zuckerberg said. “They might use people and infrastructure to grow, but the vision is to keep the service exactly the same. They do not keep the content you send, and we’re not going to change that.”

Lammy 5 years ago |

"How we partner with Facebook" is an amazing piece of weasel-wording.

foofoo4u 5 years ago |

I'd like to move my family off of WhatsApp due to these concerns. I've used Signal before, but I am not a big fan of it. I often have to re-register my devices to sign in, syncing takes a long time, and conversations do not persist across devices. I am perfectly happy using a paid service. Does anyone here think Discord or Slack would be a suitable replacement?

ObsoleteNerd 5 years ago | |

Try Telegram. It’s as easy to use as WhatsApp for non-tech family and friends, yet has all the features you want out of an IM without too much of the bloat. It has native apps on all major platforms, and for the techies it has a solid API so you can do fun stuff like write your own bots.

FabHK 5 years ago | | |

> all the features you want out of an IM without too much of the bloat.

Except default E2E (which WhatsApp, Signal, Wire, Threema etc. do provide).

bigiain 5 years ago | |

> or Slack would be a suitable replacement

Jumping out of the Facebook frypan into the Salesforce fire doesn't seem to be a particularly winning move...

(Which also raises the question, whichever alternative you choose, you probably need to evaluate the risk of Facebook (or some equally evil corp) acquiring them down the track. I wonder how likely Discord/Telegram/Signal are to be able to resist Facebook-sized acquisition offers?)

7v3x3n3sem9vv 5 years ago | | |

Signal is owned by a non-profit which cannot be sold to a for-profit like Facebook, Google, or Apple. The WhatsApp founder learned the lessons from the Facebook acquisition and improved almost every aspect when developing Signal.

vlsbr 5 years ago |

EU citizen here. Not a lawyer so correct me if I'm wrong. :)

WhatsApp uses "privacy shield"[0] to allow it to flow data from the EU to the US.

However, privacy shield was rejected by the European Court of Justice on 16 July 2020 (Schrems II) [1] so we're back to "standard contractual clauses" [2].

There's currently no alternative to Privacy Shield.

[0] https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/privacy-shield/?lang=en

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU%E2%80%93US_Privacy_Shield#L...

[2] https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/inte...

blacklight 5 years ago |

I love Telegram because of the wide set of features, because of their bot API and because I can easily use it on any client I want - including Bitlbee. And I like Signal because of its built-in security, although the lack of an API, easy integration into other clients, automation and ease of use from multiple devices prevent me from using it more. But I guess that this is a trade-off to be accepted for having strong encryption and messages stored only on the device.

Let's keep in mind however that these are advanced use cases, and that for 99% of the users these are just apps supposed to deliver text and media from A to B. In 2021 it's not hard to build an app like these, even with E2E encryption and 2FA. Social lock-in obviously plays a role, but I'm really appalled by the scarcity of alternatives that enables companies like Facebook to bully us into reading our private messages for advertising purpose and easily get away with it.

jonplackett 5 years ago |

They’re clearly ever so worried about these anti-trust suits then...

an4rchy 5 years ago |

An interesting strategy from Facebook.

Although the privacy related changes were somewhat expected, the timing and aggresive timeline will likely play out in Facebook's favor.

While giving users a 1 month grace period to either comply (share their data) or delete their account already seems like a pretty aggressive window that limits the ability for users to fully assess options or migrate existing groups/chats to alternative platforms, the short timeline combined with the on-going pandemic, and the fact that WhatsApp has become one of the primary means of communication for many around the world will likely lead to a very limited drop in users leaving the platform as a result of this policy change.

Beyond Febuary, once users have already shared their data, there is likely minimal incentive for groups or individuals to overcome the network effects and move to another platform in the short term.

beagle3 5 years ago | |

I’d be surprised if this isn’t just whitewashing some previously shared data.

Also, a preparation for antitrust action - once the data is shared and integrated, even if they are forced to separate WhatsApp, they have all the metadata (which takes 3-5 years to become stale) and now they will have it “legally” (sadly, this extortion is indeed legal. It shouldn’t be)

knodi123 5 years ago | |

> to either comply (share their data) or delete their account

Isn't WhatsApp still purportedly end-to-end encrypted? What data is "on the table" when it comes to sharing - just contact lists and phone numbers?

randoantimine 5 years ago | | |

> Isn't WhatsApp still purportedly end-to-end encrypted? What data is "on the table" when it comes to sharing - just contact lists and phone numbers?

It is, and same is claimed in their privacy policy and ToS. According to the original article it will include, what is already being collected:

    User phone numbers
    Other people’s phone numbers stored in address books
    Profile names
    Profile pictures and
    Status message including when a user was last online
    Diagnostic data collected from app logs

Along with possibly:

    Purchases
    Financial information
    Location
    Contacts
    User content
    Identifiers
    Usage data and
    Diagnostics

A little more than contact lists and phone numbers.

ratsforhorses 5 years ago |

Dumb question, I assume this means you have to disinstall whatsapp if you don't want Fb to have access to stuff on your phone... but is there a way to freeze and save all those conversations on whatsapp so I can go back later to search for specific stuff, memes, photos, links

toomuchtodo 5 years ago | |

https://faq.whatsapp.com/android/chats/how-to-save-your-chat...

weitzj 5 years ago |

There was a political cartoon from the NewYork Times or the NewYorker about pigs in front of a slaughterhouse eating happily and enjoying that the food was free. And in the background you could see a slaughterhouse with Facebook on its name.

Does anybody have this picture ? I can’t find it

yawaworht1978 5 years ago |

What if I am a WhatsApp user but I do not have a Facebook account? Will Facebook use images from WhatsApp conversations with my friends who do have a Facebook account? So much for "WhatsApp will never cost you a cent"(post acquisition statement)

reimertz 5 years ago |

We need to kill the idea that user growth is a replacement for a honest and legit business model.

This is not just a founders problem - investors are equally compliant since they keep on throwing their money as long as they see that sweet exponential curve.

Once they get tired of seeing their money being lit on fire; they give the founders one option; monetize what you have or shut down.

Since users are now used to your service being free, the only thing you can do is to look at what you have; User data.

At first, you just sell this info to your “trusted” partners because you want to be able to sleep at night, but as the revenue keeps on growing, your investors realize you have a money printing machine at your hands.

At this point you you’ve lost your compass and forgot why you even founded the thing, being stuck at a big table discussing with investors and lawyers how to find loopholes in the new iteration of the GDPR laws, ending the meeting with deciding to funnel a big chunk of cash to lobby the law out of existence.

At this point, everybody looses except from the stock owners. Or maybe you find it hard to sleep at night, because even thought you now have infinite amounts of cash, you lost a part of yourself that day when you threw your entire user base under the bus.

suyash 5 years ago | |

Yes the problem is 'adverstiting based business model' when companies seem to offer 'free services' when in reality they always plan to harvest and sell private data to advertisers. This is what is happening now with WhatsApp and FB so I'm not shocked, it was about time.

What we need more urgently is better open source alternatives that allow us to port out of this wall garden apps easily, that is only way I can see my contacts and data from WhatsApp and other apps migrating out.

arendtio 5 years ago |

The core issue seems to be, that companies want to profit from the information they can extract from communication and governments don't want to create laws, to make end-to-end encryption mandatory and information extraction illegal, as their own law enforcement depends on it.

So the company with the deepest pockets controls our daily communication channels and as consumers we feel powerless due to the network effect.

One way to overcome this would be to make it mandatory that communication services must allow federation. Sure, it would not be a perfect solution, but it would be a lot better than the current situation and should be acceptable by all parties involved.

sashokbg 5 years ago |

I live in Europe (France) and I don't have the part "As part of the Facebook family of companies .." in the EULA that is presented to me. Maybe they have different versions and the one in EU is kinda still OK ?

nowzarifarhad 5 years ago |

That's a dumb move from facebook unless they are planning to buy every other chat applications and ask their users to share their data with Facebook. I'm amazed that they are asking for it and not doing it already.

dmje 5 years ago |

Literally noone I know is on Telegram or Signal. Literally everyone is on WhatsApp. Pretty much noone I know cares about privacy, and they're all on Facebook anyway. It's gonna be really hard giving it up :-/

AlfeG 5 years ago | |

I'm on opposite side. Literally no one use whatsup, only Telegram or Viber

classified 5 years ago |

At least they made it unmistakably clear to those who'd prefer to forget it that their tentacles up your every orifice is the price you have to pay for using their "free" products.

johnwayne666 5 years ago |

Can an iOS dev tell me what data Facebook can gather if I install WhatsApp on my iPhone but disable every permission except the notifications and mobile data access?

People I talk to and my IP address but what else?

croes 5 years ago |

And what do those who do not use Facebook or WhatsApp but are in the contacts of those who do? Facebook grants itself the right to collect data from users whose rights are held by third parties.

rvanmil 5 years ago |

Market share of WhatsApp in The Netherlands is somewhere around 90%. It is time for the government to step in here because the free market will not be able to fix this.

afrcnc 5 years ago |

DUPLICATE: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25656993

Etheryte 5 years ago | |

I wouldn't really agree here. They are on the same topic, yes, but the Arstechnica article is actual news coverage that explains what's going on, as opposed to the linked page which is just Whatsapp's official corpospeak.

Razengan 5 years ago |

I guess the most valuable data WhatsApp leeches from you is your contacts graph.

Wish Apple would let us choose which contacts to give specific apps access to, like they did for photos.

In the meantime, you can try minimizing what WhatsApp sees about you by turning off access to contacts, using the desktop or web app, and just talking to people via

https://wa.me/{phoneNumber}

sdevonoes 5 years ago |

Damm, now I have to stop using WhatsApp. I'll probably lose 40% of my contacts or so, but I believe it's worth it. Sad days we live in.

JadoJodo 5 years ago |

I was a loyal (and paying) WhatsApp user who would advocate it to anyone I could find. The combination of privacy, features, and ideology was exactly what I wanted in a communication app. Then Facebook bought them for $19B and I knew that, despite any allusions to the contrary, they would want that money back. And you don't get it $5/yr/user.

I switched to Telegram and never looked back.

cabamba 5 years ago | |

Either you pay to a service or the service trades you as an asset. Telegram is no exception. You are fooling yourself thinking that you escaped the trap.

ubermonkey 5 years ago |

What's weird is that I don't know anyone who uses it. This is because (a) I'm an American and (b) nearly everyone I know uses an iPhone, so we all use Apple's own messaging tool instead.

I know some crypto fans who really try to push for folks to use Signal, but there's too much inertia. WhatsApp isn't really on the radar.

It's wild to read how much of a monopoly it enjoys elsewhere.

gerash 5 years ago |

Can someone ELI5 the ramifications of this change? The WhatsApp FAQ says only chats with businesses are affected.

Also what happened to the "if you're not the customer you're the product" mentality. Do people expect some entities to pay for servers and teams of Android and iOS developers to create a chat app without getting paid and out of pure goodwill?

Swaglord333 5 years ago |

What would the smart alternative to WA be? Telegram? Line? How can I continue using the WA without giving Facebook sth to work with?

Please bear with me if this doesn't belong here. Normally I wouldn't dare posting on HN (don't want it to become mainstream and have idiots like me gush out their opinions) but I really dunno who else to ask this.

chrisballinger 5 years ago | |

Signal: https://signal.org/

7v3x3n3sem9vv 5 years ago | |

Agree with the other guy suggesting Signal. It's basically WhatsApp, owned by non-profit so that it can't be sold to a for-profit. They've been subpoenaed and the only data they could provide for a user was the phone number that was registered, the first day that number registered and the most recent day the phone number contacted their servers.

I would suggest reading through their blog posts if you're curious about all the work they're putting into ensuring that they collect as little data about their users as possible. they truly are innovating in a field where nobody else seems to care about ensuring privacy first.

This does come at a cost to how quickly user-facing features arrive compared to their competitors, but this is because they think through where you may leak data and engineer a way around it before allowing a feature to go through. That said, at this point it's pretty much at feature parity with WhatsApp, so moving over to it would be a great time to do so.

Atariman 5 years ago |

As a privacy concerned European, there's only one viable alternative: https://threema.ch/en/

It's open source and very secure: https://www.securemessagingapps.com/

7v3x3n3sem9vv 5 years ago | |

I'm curious if you've looked into Signal and if you think it's a viable alternative to Threema? Specifically considering Signal is fully open source (client and servers), uses reproducible builds which allows you to verify that the source matches the app you're running, and is owned by a non-profit which can't be sold to a for-profit company.

Atariman 5 years ago | | |

Signal is still US-based, so I'm not interested.

dbetteridge 5 years ago | |

'pay once, chat forever'

I don't see how thats tenable with anything that requires a hosted server to relay information.

Someone will need to pay for it going forward and if the users money runs out, what then?

533474 5 years ago | |

spelling mistakes on the landing page

Atariman 5 years ago | | |

Not every company is from an English speaking country, so spelling mistakes are happening.

You're welcome to send them an email to with the fixes instead of grumble here.

kashyapc 5 years ago |

Not unexpected at all. After all, it is gratis; WhatsApp will jolly well do as they please—until regulators unleash the whirlwind.

On a related note, as a regular Signal user (and I've had a modicum of success converting some friends to it), I worry how they intend to stay afloat with "grants and donations" for the next 95 years.

eecc 5 years ago |

Many comments are about how people would love to jump ship and switch to whatever other service.

Well, there’s an IM service already deployed to all mobile systems and it’s called SMS.

All that’s needed is some sanity in the pricing, some modernization of support for multimedia and cross-device sharing/archiving.

This whole industry exists for 1 sole reason: telco ineptitude

abandonliberty 5 years ago | |

There really isn't (in SMS)

> Message delivery is "best effort", so there are no guarantees that a message will actually be delivered to its recipient, but delay or complete loss of a message is uncommon, typically affecting less than 5 percent of messages

Maybe 5g will fix something, I'm not current on the spec.

graposaymaname 5 years ago | |

Well, is it encrypted?

Ayesh 5 years ago | | |

Answering the likely rhetorical question: No.

teekert 5 years ago |

Hmm, this Dutch website says the effect for EU citizens will not be so big. [0]

https://tweakers.net/nieuws/176412/whatsapp-verplicht-datade...

jpangs88 5 years ago |

I get frustrated by things like this, these walled gardens of people I know. I wish I could just switch to signal but I've found people would rather just not talk to me than download a new messenger app

I've settled for just talking to the people I can convince on different messengers and now have ~5 messenger apps on my phone.

godelski 5 years ago | |

I don't have a large friend group, but got most of them to switch after I left Facebook. I just don't tell people I have WA and only use it if I'm forced to. You might have better luck since Signal has improved a lot in the last 6 months and there is a good desktop app. But you might need better friends. Friends that might warn you about how your username suggests you're a Nazi (I assume this is unintentional and just your birthday year)[0]

[0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=88

Tactic 5 years ago |

Facebook has also recently started to require a Facebook account to use Oculus VR. It appears they are starting to crack down on the services they have acquired. I assume this more hardline approach of "give us your data or get out" will continue with any other current or future services created or purchased.

sdfjkl 5 years ago |

How to get your friends and family to use Signal instead: "I'm on Signal if you want to talk to me."

tpoacher 5 years ago |

Yay! I've been trying to get friends to jump onto telegram for a while now. Hopefully this might do it!

dheera 5 years ago |

Yeah so WeChat banned me for an hour for violating the ToS, and it wasn't clear what I violated.

I use LineageOS for privacy reasons, and intercept various things I consider to be privacy violations.

I very much disagree with these ways of operating, for systems that monopolize human-to-human communication.

svckr 5 years ago |

That's odd. I did not receive any notification yet? Is the privacy policy country specific?

bilal4hmed 5 years ago | |

Im in the US and received it 2 days ago. Im the only one in the family and amongst my friends to have gotten it

simonswords82 5 years ago | |

I've not had it either. Perhaps it's being rolled out over time in the run up to 8 Feb switchover?

julianmarq 5 years ago |

It's very interesting how upon news like this, everyone rightly jumps at the throat of the evil corporation pushing for more control of everyone's information. But when the discussion is about free speech—which this stuff is directly related to, just in a subtle way—then suddenly at least half the comments are clamoring in defense of the large corporations' right (to censor) to host whatever they want in their platforms.

All because "the users don't know better, so it's good to filter the information they get access to" or because "information overload is somehow more likely to push people to the extremes than siloing and letting people live in filter bubbles" and other similarly paternalistic justifications. It's interesting how facebook trying to get the information is bad, but using that information, among other things, to filter what its users see or not is apparently good.

domano 5 years ago |

I consciously refuse WhatsApp and live with the consequences - but people are coming around slowly or maybe my social circle is small enough to avoid the aforementioned inertia.

Usually people have it installed alongside WhatsApp, i am the only one without it i think.

yumraj 5 years ago |

This is the straw that broke the camel's back, for me anyway..

Just started the process of notifying my connections that I'll be uninstalling WhatsApp. If not Signal, then just Phone, iMessage, SMS and email work well..

Hopefully this will drive larger adoption of Signal..

aste-risk 5 years ago |

Must have been really hard to work at Facebook. I often see people shouting at Facebook and tagging their employees on twitter left and right shaming them publicly of their employer's actions. But how do you leave that $$$ on the table.

rcMgD2BwE72F 5 years ago |

I just added a status to my Whatsapp, telling friends and family to "leave Whatsapp and join Signal.org".

None of my friends can see it (I checked for two close friends).

Can one of you guys try the same and confirm Whatsapp does not block such status?

pmlnr 5 years ago | |

Works for my friends me, though I didn't out URL (.org) in the status.

sauntheninja 5 years ago |

In India whatsapp is ubiquitous my whole family uses it my college uses it to send information all my friends use it using a alternative would be ideal but convincing people to not use whatsapp is a fool's errand here

pmlnr 5 years ago |

HN, I linked this yesterday - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25656842. Good thing it got completely ignored.

domano 5 years ago |

I have never used WhatsApp so that anyone i know either needs to send SMS or install Signal - only started working in the last 2 years tho.

Nowadays most people i know have signal installed alongside WhatsApp, i even migrated my mother.

anon_user22 5 years ago |

If someone's convincing please recommend federated decentralized protocols such matrix or xmpp rather than e2e such as signal or telegram. Its easily to switch it the same fiasco happens with these companies

airstrike 5 years ago |

I'll just leave this here

https://epic.org/privacy/internet/ftc/whatsapp/

mderazon 5 years ago |

I would leave WhatsApp if there was a way to send an auto reply message to anyone messaging me telling them where I'm available at.

Actually maybe I can put it in my bio and keep the account floating ? Hmm

malinens 5 years ago |

I got some popup from whatsapp didnt read it and clicked back. It was probably this message and I do not get this popup anymore. Looks like some dark pattern. I did not accept any new changes...

sandGorgon 5 years ago |

this may fail regulatory test in India - where Whatsapp has been blocked from rolling out payments for 2 years now. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/news...

Because of regulations, Whatsapp may neither move data out of India or transfer to a third party.

VadimPR 5 years ago |

European resident here - ended up deleting WhatsApp and asking contacts to switch to Signal/Telegram. Quite a few people were happy to make the move and some were happy for the push.

antpls 5 years ago |

At that point, I believe the strategy for Whatsapp was never to snoop into private conversations with other people, but to get all the transactions and interactions made with businesses.

PakG1 5 years ago |

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Whatsapp+founder Writing has been on the wall for a while.

loycombinate 5 years ago |

Users in Hong Kong use WhatsApp to stay out of trouble with govt. Like accidentally talking about politics. If Facebook can read msg then govt can make them turn over the msg.

cerved 5 years ago | |

the data mentioned isn't messages but phone numbers, contacts, status messages, logs etc.

loycombinate 5 years ago | | |

Having phone numbers and contacts of certain people can get you into trouble.

jimkleiber 5 years ago |

I've been wondering if users should organize or unionize to get more rights on the platforms we use. What do you all think about something like this in this situation?

Tomte 5 years ago |

Wasn't not doing that a precondition that the EU imposed on the Whatsapp acquisition by Facebook?

Was that time-limited, is it not running afoul of that, or does Facebook just risk it?

isoprophlex 5 years ago |

A nice dark pattern in WhatsApp:

Turning off access to contacts in ios immediately makes your profile picture invisible to others.

Meaning: we cant all revoke access and try to identify contacts by profile pic.

Fuck you FB.

oakpond 5 years ago |

So my real life fb profile may end up on somebody's suggestions list because I happened to have contacted them on WhatsApp?

I guess it's time to say goodbye to my fb account.

YeGoblynQueenne 5 years ago |

Oh, good. This is the perfect excuse for me to finally uninstall whatsapp. My friends and family can SMS me if they need me.

So long whatsapp. I never needed you. :bird emoji:

croes 5 years ago |

This will then be interesting for the lawsuit in Germany.

icu 5 years ago |

It's time for me to push everyone I know onto Signal and uninstall WhatsApp. I don't trust Facebook at all and this was the final straw for me.

numlock86 5 years ago |

I have read the article. From my current understanding this is what WhatsApp/Facebook has been doing since its release. What am I missing?

blippage 5 years ago |

WhatsApp wanted me to give my phone number in order to sign up. That's a hard "no" from me. I gave up on Facebook ages ago.

rusabd 5 years ago |

I am hosting rocketchat for majority of communication just for my family. It has some maintenance overhead but generally works really well

submeta 5 years ago |

Does anybody know how we can export our Whatsapp chats in Germany? It used to be possible, it‘s not allowed anymore. But any workarounds?

jeroenhd 5 years ago | |

On a rooted/jailbroken phone, there are apps that just dump the database into a readable format.

Theoretically you might be able to get something out of the local or cloud backups, but they're encrypted so they're probably difficult to get a hold of. The key is stored in the private application data, but there must be some way to get it back/regenerate it because you can restore a backup without copying any secrets from the previous phone.

submeta 5 years ago | |

Actually I bought a piece of software [1] that perfectly exported five years of messages out of my cellphone, then I didn’t hesitate once day to delete my WhatsApp accout.

[1]: „Backuptrans iPhone WhatsApp Transfer for Mac“

touchpadder 5 years ago |

Time to stop using LizardWare and only use Telegram and Signal. A few years ago these were pretty exotic but now most people have them.

raister 5 years ago | |

Doesn't Telegram had massive security issues in the past? Are you sure those are the only options?

hliyan 5 years ago |

Perhaps messaging should once again be built into the telecommunication infrastructure (like SMS) and billed along with voice and data.

Mc_Big_G 5 years ago |

Well, there goes the "You don't need to quit WhatsApp because they don't collect data like Facebook" argument.

abdullahkhalids 5 years ago |

Is there a way to sandbox android applications?

tolbish 5 years ago |

Signal users: How is quality of multi-person video calls? If it's as good, I wonder why it's still a beta feature.

bilal4hmed 5 years ago | |

The quality is good not great. If you are going to compared to Duo or Facetime, its not there yet. Ill say thats its not a show stopper though

throwaway888abc 5 years ago |

https://signal.org/en/

anoncake 5 years ago | |

https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...

Moving to a different walled garden is not a solution.

drunkpotato 5 years ago |

I just deleted WhatsApp rather than “agree” to their ultimatum. I liked the group chats, but not enough for that.

Cyber_squad 5 years ago |

Don't blame the tiger for its claw.

I mean, we should help our friends to migrate to new solutions. If we don't we lose.

donut2d 5 years ago |

I wonder how they will deal with people such as myself who use Whattsapp but do not have a Facebook account.

amelius 5 years ago |

I want to switch. But how do I migrate (or backup) my existing conversations (including images and videos)?

cybert00th 5 years ago |

Oh excellent!

I'd been putting off moving all our family WhatsApp groups to Telegram.

Now I can actually justify the time it will take.

banach 5 years ago |

Thanks, Facebook, for the reminder to speed up transition to Signal for the rest of my social circles.

mensetmanusman 5 years ago |

Maybe governments should support SMS to be free. (also force operators to ban spam so it is usable).

Simulacra 5 years ago |

Sounds like my Oculus paperweight...

LegitShady 5 years ago | |

If you've got $200 and a chip in your shoulder, Oculus' arbitration clause in their user agreement ensures that if you pay $200, Oculus will pay thousands to handle the arbitration, and case law so far says they can't "combine" arbitration cases just because its convenient for them to do so.

I no longer have an oculus HMD, but Oculus no longer has any profit from me.

violetgarden 5 years ago | |

You’re telling me! I got my mom an Oculus since she wouldn’t need a beefy computer to run VR. A few weeks after getting it, they want the Oculus account switched over to Facebook. Luckily, she can use the Oculus account for a few more years, but it was still so annoying.

jordache 5 years ago | |

why not just create a burner FB account?

zizee 5 years ago | | |

Apparently this is against Facebook's ToS and it risks account suspension at any time (removing access to anything you bought in the Oculus store).

I am thankful that I made the decision early on to use steam for purchases early on.

purplecats 5 years ago | | |

it ceases to be a burner with usage. gaze into the abyss and the abyss gazes back into you

sneak 5 years ago | | |

It's no longer a burner if you type in payment details to buy stuff, it's then linked to your banking identity.

ngcc_hk 5 years ago |

Accept it and then disable its access to contacts to see how it goes. May have to go to signal.

jariel 5 years ago |

This is not nice, but remember they are merely doing what Google does, in the sense that all of their properties are inexorably and deeply linked.

The only surprise is that this was not done sooner.

WhatsApp is somewhat more essential for a lot of people, and contains more sensitive information, so this is not good.

At least with FB and Insta, you can just keep rubbish information stored in there.

graposaymaname 5 years ago |

We all saw this coming, and it’s most unfortunate that the network effects simply make us all share our data with them.

But doesn’t this violate GDPR? Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought asking the user to share data or leave service was illegal under it.

Also the same under iOS 14, again I have almost zero knowledge regarding the app store policies but I thought it had the same condition that an app should be functional without the user accepting data sharing policies.

jdmg94 5 years ago |

I can’t believe I pard for whatsapp back in the day when it was a paid app on the app store

darau1 5 years ago |

Uninstalled. Signal is better.

amatecha 5 years ago |

Don't worry, already stopped using the app years ago when FB acquired them.

craftydevil 5 years ago |

As a part of Boycott , lot of us moved towards privacy centric ZOHO app Arattai.

wirthjason 5 years ago |

I mistakenly pressed “yes” to this. Is there anything I can do? Can I revoke it?

tobyhinloopen 5 years ago |

Too bad I can’t get rid of whatsapp. Clients commonly contact me via whatsapp

mancerayder 5 years ago |

I'll take the second option.

Signal works pretty well for anyone who isn't my family.

sfinaed 5 years ago |

What do people here think of Element.io (with the default matrix.org server)?

soupson 5 years ago | |

The information you put in parenthesis immediately rules it out for 99% of users. I can count on one hand the number of my family members who have any concept for what that information means.

beertoagunfight 5 years ago |

Fuck Facebook, I'm out.

8fingerlouie 5 years ago |

I have 2 contacts on Signal and 4 on Telegram, and don't even have WhatsApp installed.

I'm puzzled where Denmark went "wrong". I see other EU users say that WhatsApp is absolutely dominant in their countries, and yet everybody i know uses iMessage, which may not be surprising if you look at graphs like this https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/denmark

For "social circles", coordinating sports activites and more, people use Facebook or Facebook Messenger, which is just as bad as WhatsApp.

Schools here use Microsoft Teams for remote teaching classes, and Office365 for schoolwork, and there's not a single Google account to be found anywhere. O365 may be just as bad, but the contract is negotiated on a government level, and bound by the GDPR and other local laws, so i assume my kids personal data are relatively secure.

rutthenut 5 years ago |

A colleague shared this (Apr 2020) link about Signal .vs. WhatsApp, which may be more important in light of this change.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/signal-vs-whatsapp

csunbird 5 years ago |

Can we unleash the EU anti-trust regulators on them for monopoly abuse?

notananthem 5 years ago |

Time to break up Facebook

petre 5 years ago |

Apparently the EU fine wasn't enough to quell this behaviour.

zeruch 5 years ago |

Well, delete it is then.

bladelessninja2 5 years ago |

I love how they give you plenty of time before ultimatum /s

jacquesm 5 years ago |

And that's why I never joined WhatsApp, and still use SMS.

wjp3 5 years ago |

Thanks for the final push I needed FB, to stop using WhatsApp.

SebastianKra 5 years ago |

Their privacy policy is full of tricks and clever wording to confuse you, and stop you from revoking your consent to data processing. (...which they likely have, because you were already using the service before GDPR went into effect)

https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/privacy-policy-eea

I especially like how their email template asks you to fill out a bunch of unnecessary fields and implies that the request might be denied if you don't.

I think most WhatsApp users would just give up at that point.

I think both of these adresses work: - DPO-inquiries@support.whatsapp.com - Objection.eu@support.whatsapp.com

However, I don't really know how to best formulate such a request.

(By the way, the server might refuse to receive you mail, if they don't recognize your domain.)

johnchristopher 5 years ago |

When will the market be ripe for people/average joe to buy or rent a block data service à la s3/minio so they can plug their app (calendar, photo sharing, blog, messages, etc.) to it instead of being forced to pay for services with their privacy ? They'd just pay for cloud storage that can be used by any apps using buckets/volumes as external storage instead of paying for dropbox like dumb storage.

If I had money I would do a foundation thing to kickstart something like that.

Is that a dumb idea ?

edit: maybe the latency between the app and the block service would be too high to be reliable/tolerable.

edit2: there used to be a lot of applications that relied on dropbox to store things but I have a feeling SSG captured the dev mindshare (or maybe Dropbox restricted the API).

edit3: I just corrected `id` to `idea`, my brain does that when I am tired :D

lisper 5 years ago | |

Not dumb at all, just really hard. I've taken a couple of shots at this and been defeated by it every time.

hntcz 5 years ago | |

No, not dumb. That's what I wrote my BSc project on.

holografix 5 years ago | |

How would you stop the app from retaining your date once they have access to it?

johnchristopher 5 years ago | | |

You can revoke access to buckets (to stay in the S3 comparison).

DiederikvandenB 5 years ago |

Does this also apply to European customers, given GDPR?

rusk 5 years ago | |

This was the very question I have. Presumably given this ultimatum they would pull out of the EU market? That’s great that solves the problem of getting my friends and family onto something else!

utf_8x 5 years ago | |

European user here - I got the notification today so... I guess it does?

TrianguloY 5 years ago | | |

I also got the notification, but it's strange because WhatsApp in Europe is from WhatsApp Ireland Limited, and WhatsApp outside is from WhatsApp LLC. They are different companies with different legal requirements. I've seen some news stating that these new changes apply only to WhatsApp LLC, but the notification seem to say otherwise.

Someone else with more info could explain better?

blue_box 5 years ago | |

Seems like, no. On their EU Privacy Policy, it says:

“Today, Facebook does not use your WhatsApp account information to improve your Facebook product experiences or provide you more relevant Facebook ad experiences on Facebook.“

hyperdimension 5 years ago | | |

That "Today," hook sure sounds rather ominous to me.

"Today, I've not murdered you yet! Look at that accomplishment I've made!"

mro_name 5 years ago | | |

prbly they're not using it to 'improve', but to e.g. worsen? That statement would be legally true. lol.

k_sze 5 years ago | |

There are no customers. If you’re not paying for it, you’re not a customer: you’re the product.

Whatever WhatsApp/Facebook do to “take care” of the “customers” is just like pig farmers taking care of pigs.

iagovar 5 years ago |

Telegram works fine.

comeonseriously 5 years ago |

Get that data before they're forced to break up.

peter_retief 5 years ago |

The sooner Facebook gets broken up the better.

dikaio 5 years ago |

I don’t understand the problem. Use Signal.

fouric 5 years ago | |

As many, many other people have stated here - beyond just burning social capital by forcing your other friends and family to use Signal (which isn't even federated), a lot of social, community, and commercial things are coordinated exclusively through WhatsApp.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25669600

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25673859

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25669072

srfvtgb 5 years ago |

A lot of people mention Telegram, as far as I can tell, it's a worse Signal. What advantages does it have over Signal?

read_if_gay_ 5 years ago | |

Depending on your perspective, Signal is actually a worse Telegram. Telegram has the best UX and feature set ouf of all messaging apps, and privacy does not outweigh convenience for the vast majority of people.

sdfhbdf 5 years ago | | |

I'm still confused as to why Telegram doesn't have message reactions which every other platform has. I understand that some peoeple feel like it's not needed but if they don't want they wouldn't have to use and in my workflow when talking in groups is to use them extensively and replying with stickers is a terrible experience.

_ink_ 5 years ago | |

I think the UI is better. Encryption is worse. But I like how they structured their data centers. They have sprinkled them into different countries and they claim that servers from different jurisdictions are necessary to access the data. So if an agency wants to access it, they have to get warrants from different countries. With all the war on encryption going on, e.g. forcing companies to include backdoors, I think this is the way to go.

bigiain 5 years ago | | |

> They have sprinkled them into different countries and they claim that servers from different jurisdictions are necessary to access the data. So if an agency wants to access it, they have to get warrants from different countries.

That's a neat trick, but not as neat as Signal's "sure, here's all the data we have - the time and ip address of their last use."

(I'm sure a bunch of the "better UX, UI, and features" people like in Telegram rely on them storing more data on their servers, so that comes down to a privacy/convenience tradeoff, which as others have pointed out almost always comes down on the convenience side for 99.99% of people...)

toper-centage 5 years ago | |

Signal is good for privacy and that's about it. Telegram has voice calls, videos calls, stickers and easy sticker creation, super convenient in-line gif/pic/video search, video and voice messages, and you can add people without sharing your phone number...

dublinben 5 years ago | | |

Signal has all of those features except the final one, which is of debatable value.

Number157 5 years ago |

If you're in the EU, you could try reporting this as a GDPR violation.

How to report:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/refo...

amelius 5 years ago |

Our parents invented the transistor, radar, computers, operating systems, telecommunications, ...

We invented social media.

sbt 5 years ago |

This should not be legal.

irateswami 5 years ago |

Other shoe, meet floor.

hajderr 5 years ago |

New apps on the rise!

kulesh 5 years ago |

Ok. I’ve stopped.

arrty88 5 years ago |

Hello telegram!

mro_name 5 years ago |

I've never done either and feel great.

Who can't?

gregjw 5 years ago |

Adios!

vzaliva 5 years ago |

Signal

98hio 5 years ago |

Seems like a GDPR violation. I think collection of user data has to be voluntary in a meaningful way.

hajderr 5 years ago |

What happened to Telegram?

annadane 5 years ago |

Is Mark Zuckerberg legitimately a sociopath? Does he get off on lying to people?

elia_is_me 5 years ago |

good!

known 5 years ago |

If you are not paying, you are the product https://archive.is/lrCEe

permille42 5 years ago |

Signal is better anyway. WhatsApp cooperates with the US government.

hyko 5 years ago |

FB owned = FB. Why is that so hard to understand?

himujjal 5 years ago |

3 years of me and my girlfriend using signal. no problem whatsoever

lol. whatsapp

- Contact Discovery - Group chats - History / Log - Shared message order - Communication beyond text (emojis / reactions / inline images) - Ability to receive messages while offline - No need for technical skills

* User phone numbers * Other people’s phone numbers stored in address books * Profile names * Profile pictures and * Status message including when a user was last online * Diagnostic data collected from app logs

- Use WA and participate - Don't use WA, don't participate - Go stand in front of the home of whoever organizes the activity and have a little one-person picket parade with angrily-worded signs -- this is the same as #2 but might make you feel better