Things escalated so quickly about the new Terms of Service, and today we’ve finally a clear response from WhatsApp. Let’s discover the content!
| Common questions | Answers |
|---|---|
| Topic about? | New Terms of Service |
| Previous article? | Are our chats and calls safe with new Terms of Service? |
| Where can I read new Terms of Service? | Terms of Service are available here. |
| I’ve wrongly accepted new Terms of Service! Can I revoke them? | No. |
| I wrongly declined new Terms of Service! What to do? | WhatsApp will present the new Terms of Service again. |
| What happens if I don’t accept new Terms of Service? | You won’t be able to use WhatsApp anymore until you accept them. |
As explained in our previous article, the core of the updated Terms of Service of WhatsApp is solution provider, a set of specific tools available for businesses, in order to help them to read, store and manage messages received from you.
Solution providers have their own privacy practices, that might use all chats they receive to improve your experience on Facebook and Instagram with targeted advertisements.
The user can always contact the business to ask more clarifications about their privacy policy: if the user has some doubts, just don’t chat with that business, it’s simple!
We have also explained that a system message appears in the chat every time a business starts to use a solution provider:
Today there is an official response from WhatsApp. Everything starts with an image:
With the updated Terms of Service, nothing changes about your normal experience on WhatsApp. You can still safely and privately communicate with your family and friends because:
- WhatsApp still cannot see your private messages or hear your calls and neither can Facebook. Chats, Groups and Calls are end-to-end encrypted, and new Terms of Service didn’t change that.
- No logs are saved about who everyone is messaging with or calling to. This is just used internally in the app to understand which contacts to present at the top of your status updates list, and it’s not uploaded on the server.
- Shared locations are always private, being end-to-end encrypted.
- Your contact list is uploaded to WhatsApp servers, but it is never shared with Facebook.
- Your status updates are still private because they are end-to-end encrypted, and only people you choose from your privacy settings can receive and see them.
WhatsApp, in their latest FAQ, explains what are solution providers in detail, as we did in our previous article and above, mentioning the fact that the user always knows when a business he is chatting with is using a solution provider (the system message, do you remember?). The same concept is applied if you start using Shops, that might influence your advertising experience on Facebook.
These features (Shops and the experience with business using any solution provider) are completely optional: if you don’t like them, just don’t use these features and nothing will change.
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