New Terms of Service spotted in WhatsApp for Android, reporting new details related to Facebook

WhatsApp has submitted a new update through the Google Play Beta Program, bringing the version up to 2.18.57.
This update does not contain visible changes and features, but we found something very interesting that will probably change WhatsApp.

ATTENTION:

— Writing “we”, “us”, “our” or similar terms, we don’t mean ourself but the subject is always WhatsApp Inc. WABetaInfo is not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected with WhatsApp Inc., its affiliates and Facebook Companies. We’ve just found these terms implemented by WhatsApp itself in this beta version and ready to share.
— These terms may change in future, before they will be announced by WhatsApp, so something may be different in the official TOS.

NEW TERMS OF SERVICE

We have published an article about the General Data Protection Regulation, that will provide an option to download own data from the WhatsApp Server.
Today, we discovered that WhatsApp is going to change their Terms of Service soon.
Analyzing this update, we have easily found a very important part of terms of WhatsApp, exploring the new added Strings in the APK, that will be directly visible in WhatsApp in future. This part of terms that we found is about Facebook.

How We Work Together with Other Facebook Companies

What are the Facebook Companies?

The Facebook Companies (which include WhatsApp) are a group of companies that are owned by Facebook. Other Facebook Companies provide services to WhatsApp so that we can operate and provide our Services. We also work together to help ensure the safety, security, and integrity of WhatsApp and other Facebook Company Products.
When we share your personal information with other Facebook Companies, it will only be used to provide services to WhatsApp on our behalf in accordance with our instructions and terms or to help ensure the safety, security, and integrity of WhatsApp and other Facebook Company Products. Nothing you share on WhatsApp, including your phone number, will be shown on Facebook or any of the Facebook Company Products, unless you choose to show it.

How does WhatsApp work with other Facebook Companies?

Here are the services other Facebook Companies supply to us so that we can operate and provide WhatsApp:

Helping us provide you a fast, reliable, and innovative WhatsApp.

WhatsApp works with the Facebook Companies, which supply us with infrastructure, technology, tools, and information that help us operate and provide WhatsApp, including improving and understanding how WhatsApp is used. For example, this helps us provide you fast and reliable messaging around the world. We also use the Facebook Companies to help us understand how our features are performing so we can provide an innovative experience to you.

Improving ways for our users to connect to WhatsApp.

WhatsApp works with the Facebook Companies to provide ways to connect your WhatsApp experience with Facebook Company Products. For example, you may be able to share a Facebook or Instagram post with your friends on WhatsApp. We also work with Facebook Companies to promote and offer our Services to people who use other Facebook Company Products.

Connecting businesses with you on WhatsApp.

WhatsApp is working to find useful ways for our users to connect with businesses on WhatsApp so you can receive things like order, transaction, and appointment information, delivery and shipping notifications, product and service updates, marketing messages, business directory listings to discover businesses on WhatsApp, [and other sponsored content/ads from these businesses]. Over the next year, we will work with the Facebook Companies to do this. For example, you might see on Facebook options to start a conversation with a business on WhatsApp. If you use Facebook Company Products, we will ask Facebook to use the information it has about you and your interests to help us provide you a way to connect with businesses in a relevant and personalized manner through informational and marketing messages, business directory listings, [and other sponsored content/ads] on WhatsApp. We’ll also work with Facebook to measure the effectiveness of these connections for us and the businesses. Once we start to work with Facebook on these relevant and personalized experiences, you’ll be able to manage the experience in your [Facebook ad settings and ad preferences] [, and we will tell you when these are available].

Learn More About Connecting with Businesses

Safety, Security, and Integrity

WhatsApp and other Facebook Companies also share information between ourselves to ensure the safety, security, and integrity of WhatsApp and the Facebook Company Products, like removing abusive and dangerous people and activity.

Learn More about Safety, Security, and Integrity

What information does WhatsApp share with other Facebook Companies?
Here are the types of information we share with the other Facebook Companies when they supply these services to WhatsApp:
— Information you provide when you use WhatsApp, like your profile name and phone number
— Information about how you use WhatsApp, like the date you registered your account, when you last used our Services, the types and frequency of features you use, which businesses you message with, and which business messages, business directory listings [, and sponsored content/ads] you interact with
— Information from your device and app, like its operating system, app version, location, and identifiers (like device identifiers and the FB Family ID).

Reading these terms, we can read many mentions about sponsored content/ads.
We don’t think this is a direct indication to implement Ads in WhatsApp, but maybe something will change about the relationship with the businesses and these new upcoming features.
Note that we recommend to wait more clarifications in a future WhatsApp Official Blog post before you reach some conclusions.
Note again that you are able to block Businesses to contact you.
The user, in order to use WhatsApp, will have to accept these new terms. It’s not known if there will be (again) a switch to stop the sharing with Facebook, but we will keep you updated.

Let us know on Twitter what you think about this news and read our next announcements on our Telegram Channel!