WhatsApp surprises everyone with an extremely important decision that comes after some very serious changes that have taken place, and that come against his will, or rather the will of those at Facebook. More precisely, those from WhatsApp are protesting against Apple's decision to oblige application developers to explain very clearly what exactly they use users' personal data for, for correct labeling in the App Store.
WhatsApp protests against this measure because it collects a large number of people's personal data, because of Facebook and the company's desire to collect absolutely all possible information about its users. WhatsApp says that it can be put at a serious disadvantage in front of competitors because of the labels that Apple establishes for applications, but everything is done so that people know what kind of data they have access to.
WhatsApp: The UNPRECEDENTED protest that SURPRISED a lot of people
WhatsApp says that Apple has applied an unfair label, which applies to applications that can read the content of messages sent by users, even if the application does not actually do this, as promised. Those from WhatsApp tried to explain what each label applied in the App Store means for the data to which the application has access, and according to the information that came from the messaging platform, here is what data is accessed:
- Contact information: When you sign up for WhatsApp, we receive your phone number and rely on it to deliver messages to your device. If you want to enable two-step verification, you can choose to share your email address with WhatsApp, although it's not necessary. You can also choose to email WhatsApp for support.
- Contact: to make it easier for you to send messages to friends and family, when you sign up for WhatsApp, we ask for access to your phone numbers to see which of those numbers are verified in our system. If you choose to do this, the app displays the names you choose from the phonebook.
- Financial information: In countries where you can send payments via WhatsApp, your card or bank information is required to complete a transaction.
- acquisitions: If you choose to use Facebook Shops on WhatsApp, we can understand your shopping activity, such as the products you view and purchase, and share this information with Facebook because Shops is a Facebook product. This means that your product navigation and in-store shopping experience can influence what you see in stores on other Facebook products.
- Identifiers: We associate your phone number with your WhatsApp user ID and are aware of the IP address from which your phone connects to WhatsApp.
- Rough location: Although we don't see your exact location, we are aware of your IP address and the country code in your phone number.
- User Content: We receive your "about" information, as well as your profile picture, group names, group profile picture and group descriptions. We rely on this information to prevent abuse and ban accounts we suspect are using WhatsApp to break the law. Additionally, if you choose to report a problem to WhatsApp, we receive the information you send us.
- Usage data: To operate a reliable global service, we need to understand if the features are performing. To prevent abuse, we take action against accounts engaged in bulk or automated messaging, which was especially important during the election when certain groups may try to send large-scale messaging. We also sponsor marketing campaigns, including using Apple's advertising network, to reach people who don't currently use WhatsApp. We also communicate new product features and updates to users within the app.
- Diagnostic: If you experience a problem using WhatsApp, we receive crash logs so we can fix bugs and improve our service.
WhatsApp it explains quite interestingly all the data it takes from users' iPhones, and probably many people will be surprised to find out how much data ends up on its servers after installation. Even so, WhatsApp says that all this information is necessary to provide the functionality that we all enjoy within the application, so the Americans hope that people will not be scared by what will appear in the ApP Store.
