WhatsApp has been the talk of the town since 2021 started. The social media giant has a huge customer base in India, and the app is used for multiple purposes by the users, including informal and formal communication. What’s strange is the untimely decision of WhatsApp to introduce the new privacy policies. Users wouldn’t have cared a lot if WhatsApp was a new application asking for their data. However, it is not a new app, and because of that, people are already attached to its UI and the utility to the extent that they don’t want to stop using the app but also hesitate to share their personal data with Facebook.
Untimed Decision a Problem for WhatsApp
Since WhatsApp never collected a plethora of important personal information of the users, people used it without any worries. Year after year, the app added millions of new users in India. But then, out of nowhere, in early January 2021, Facebook said that it will collect the data of the users and if the users don’t want to share their data, they can stop using the app. At the time of signing up for the app, no one would have thought that WhatsApp would do such a thing, and that is why it feels like a very untimely decision from the company.
Facebook is a Greedy Dog
Facebook, worth billions of dollars, apparently wants to make more money, but this time, by selling the data of WhatsApp’s users. According to the terms and conditions of the new privacy policies, WhatsApp will be sharing very crucial data of the users with its parent company Facebook. Facebook will then use this data and sell it to advertisers in exchange for money. However, Facebook should not be blamed for making money out of data since almost every tech corporate is doing that today. What’s criticisable is the fact that Facebook isn’t giving the Indian users the same option of rejecting the privacy terms and conditions like it did to the European users. What’s even more criticisable is the fact that Facebook is introducing this privacy policy change out of nowhere. WhatsApp wasn’t supposed to be an app that shared data with other companies. But due to the recent changes by Facebook, from today, WhatsApp will only allow the Indian users to get the full functionalities of the app if they accept the new terms and conditions of the company. The sudden change has not only left users surprised, but it also makes them feel cheated. While it is understandable that Facebook wants to make money, what’s not fair is that users are basically bullied by the company to accept the terms and conditions. Facebook knows that the users who are attached to the app won’t be able to switch to other applications. Further, the media data and everything else that WhatsApp has is very valuable to some users, which they can’t risk losing. Whatever Facebook might say now, people already feel cheated. Millions of users are going to accept the policy even though they don’t want to, but very soon, it will all be forgotten, and Facebook will have made more billions.
