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WhatsApp Ordered To Stop Sharing User Data With Facebook (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the bad-intentions dept.

France's privacy watchdog CNIL has ordered WhatsApp to stop sharing user data with its parent company Facebook. According to a public notice posted on the French website, WhatsApp has a month to comply with the order. The Verge reports: The query began after WhatsApp added to its terms of service last year that it shares data with Facebook to develop targeted advertising, security measures, and to gather business intelligence. Upon investigating these claims, the CNIL ruled that while WhatsApp's intention of improving security measures was valid, the app's business intelligence reason wasn't as acceptable. After all, WhatsApp never told its users it was collecting data for business intelligence and there's no way to opt out without uninstalling the app. That violates "the fundamental freedoms of users," said the CNIL.

53 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. What is a WhatsApp? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    What is a WhatsApp? (No, I won't google it. The summary ought to tell me what a WhatsApp is.)

    1. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The parent comment should be upmodded. It's a valid and relevant question. The shitty articles linked to from the summary don't say what it is, either.

    2. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      WhatsApp is so yesterday!
      If you care about your privacy use Signal.

    3. Re:What is a WhatsApp? by gravewax · · Score: 1

      what is a facebook? what is a French website? what is targeted advertising etc etc. really if you are so tech illiterate as to not know what some of the basics are then get the fuck off this forum, we don't need summaries that are 3 pages long so that every word can be explained to you because you are too ignorant or lazy.

    4. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 4, Insightful

      if you are so tech illiterate to not know what facebook or WhatsApp are then don't read the story, tech is not for you.

      Not so fast there. 30 years in the tech industry. Designing leading edge silicon products. There is no future in light entertainment for me. WhatsApp is just another program that runs on a phone. It's entirely reasonable to not know what it is, while knowing you could find out if you needed too.

      Us old techies use signal anyway.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    5. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What is this, a day of butthurt dumbshit millennials?
      Kill yourself, whatsup your stupid n1gger cocksucking dumbass bitch.

    6. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nope. Not at all. Technology is a big subject. Contrary to what seems to pass for tech knowledge these days, phone apps do not comprise the entirety of technology. The size of a user base doesn't really count as a technical matter. Here's a contrary example: The key agreement protocol used in a messaging apps are gloriously technical. I can prattle on about the authentication and key agreement protocols in messaging apps all day.

      Accusing people of ignorance based on transient criteria, now that's a character flaw.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    7. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      WhatsApp has a userbase of 1.3 billion users now, no it is not reasonable to say you are tech literate and don't know what it is

      Is it reasonable for you to not realize that nobody in the US uses whatsapp?
      Should I call you an insensitive clod?

    8. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by gravewax · · Score: 2

      millennial?, I wish. I was already in the industry by the time most millennials were born. obviously by your language most millennials are significantly older than you and definitely more mature though. Once you get out into the real world instead of being spoon fed by your mother perhaps you will pick up some basic knowledge.

    9. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      >but saying you don't know what facebook, WhatsApp, office, Linux etc is completely contradicts that.

      At no point did I claim not to know what Office, Facebook or Linux is. I use all three every day.

      Inventing things other people didn't say and criticizing them for saying it is an even bigger character flaw.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    10. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

      Did you know the majority of WhatsApp users use WhatsApp?

    11. Re:What is a WhatsApp? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      Since it also says "Facebook", this isn't the "most used messenger". The most used one is something Chinese, WeeChat or something similar.

      WhatsApp daily users: ~ 1 Billion.
      WeChat daily users: ~ 700 Million

      But they aren't really comparable. WhatsApp is a messenger app. WeChat is that, plus much more.

      In China, if you see a beggar on the street and you don't have any spare change, you can do a WeChat transfer from your phone directly to the bum's phone. You can't do that with WhatsApp.

    12. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      At no point did I claim not to know what Office, Facebook or Linux is.

      WhatsApp is used by more people than Facebook, and has WAY more users than Office or non-Android Linux.

      If you don't know what WhatsApp is, you are seriously out of touch, and you shouldn't expect Slashdot articles to be dumbed down to accommodate you.

      Disclaimer: I think WhatsApp is stupid. I don't use it. But I certainly know what it is.

    13. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by houghi · · Score: 1, Troll

      Translation : "Old Techie here. I used to be with IT, but then they changed what IT was. Now what I'm with isn't IT anymore and what's IT seems weird and scary. It'll happen to you!"

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    14. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      To be fair, I work in tech and am barely aware of its existence. If I quizzed a random selection of friends I doubt I'd get a single person who uses it.

      It might be a regional thing. It seems pretty big in Europe, but WhatsApp appears to have about 1/6th the market share of Facebook Messenger here in AU, which itself seems to have been installed by default and ignored (low active user share for both). I honestly have never had anyone ask about it or want to "WhatApp" me. FB chat for personal or SfB/Teams for work is much more likely. I even have a couple of customers who insist on crap like Viber.

      Until just now, googling statistics, I didn't even realise WhatsApp were more than another tiny little blip in the mobile app space used by a handful of people.

    15. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Us old techies use signal anyway.

      Speak for yourself, youngster. "write" is my preferred way of sending messages, and "talk" if more than one line is needed. oo

    16. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      Us old techies use signal anyway.

      Speak for yourself, youngster. "write" is my preferred way of sending messages, and "talk" if more than one line is needed. oo

      When I was actually younger, I had dial up BBSs and a little later, KA9Q.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    17. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      Translation : "Old Techie here. I used to be with IT, but then they changed what IT was. Now what I'm with isn't IT anymore and what's IT seems weird and scary. It'll happen to you!"

      While I sympathize with the IT professionals who usually get a raw deal from management, I'm not one of them. Pay attention. The information is there.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    18. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      You can write THE best software in the world but it will Still be useless and worth next to nothing IF No one uses it.

      Yes userbase matter, what made WhatsApp popoular is that it is using your phonenumber as screen name so it Will automaticly add everyone in your phonebook

      So you think technological literacy is a popularity contest?

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    19. Re: What is a WhatsApp? by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      Smells like shill in this thread, jesus christ. It's a messaging app, not the second coming.

  2. Totally meaningless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If you believe a single word that Facebook or their vassal companies says about privacy or data sharing, then you deserve to be tracked by them. They're not stopping shit: they're going to store and exploit everything they possibly can. The regulators won't be able to tell what's going on anyway, and as a final option there's always paying lobbyists or using blackmail (government employees give plenty of information to FB too).

    1. Re:Totally meaningless by manu0601 · · Score: 2

      Well, they can obey or be banned from doing business is France I suppose?

      No ban: CNIL will issue a fine, with daily penalties until Whatsapps comply or cease business.

    2. Re:Totally meaningless by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 4, Informative

      Still makes no sense since the whole point of companies merging is to combine assets, of which customer data is an asset to both the separate facebook and whatsapp companies, and the new combined company under facebook control.

      You don't seem to be familiar with European data protection laws. It's your data, not theirs.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    3. Re:Totally meaningless by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Informative

      Some countries believe customer data is actually owned by the customer. If you want to do something with it, the customer needs to agree.

      They frown upon companies who buy other companies for their data and use it for other purposes without consent.

      America doesn't care though, they believe companies have more rights than individuals.

    4. Re:Totally meaningless by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2

      and EU, which is arguably least corrupt organization in the world with any power at all to help privacy,

      LOL. In the EU legislation is initiated by the European Commission, not the Parliament. European Commissioners are not elected and cannot be removed by a direct election. Now if you're a corrupt corporation that makes them absolutely ideal people to lobby - they can initiate legislation but don't need to worry about getting re-elected.

      And once legislation goes through the European Parliament EU member states are legally required to transpose them into EU law, regardless of whether the politicians in the national parliament agree or not - rather than being forced to defend an unpopular law government can simply say 'yeah it sucks but we have to implement it'

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

      When adopted, directives give member states a timetable for the implementation of the intended outcome. Occasionally, the laws of a member state may already comply with this outcome, and the state involved would be required only to keep its laws in place. More commonly, member states are required to make changes to their laws (commonly referred to as transposition) in order for the directive to be implemented correctly. This is done in approximately 99% of the cases.[4] If a member state fails to pass the required national legislation, or if the national legislation does not adequately comply with the requirements of the directive, the European Commission may initiate legal action against the member state in the European Court of Justice. This may also happen when a member state has transposed a directive in theory but has failed to abide by its provisions in practice.

      I.e. the EU is what happens when corporations think "The US and UK have too many checks and balances on lobbying because even the most awful politician has to worry about a backlash if they vote for an unpopular law. It'd be so much easier if we could lobby unelected politicians at the supranational level, have the laws they make rubber stamped by a supranational parliament no one cares about and then pushed downstream, totally bypassing national parliaments with their pesky, accountable politicians".

      So it's completely corrupt. It also doesn't have any power to help privacy because WhatsApp and Facebook could just shut down their EU offices and people would continue to use their apps. And if it were EU internet companies infringing privacy, all they need to do is lobby at European Commission level and they can stop any pesky regulation.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    5. Re:Totally meaningless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In the EU this permission needs to be specific and explicit. WhatsApp needs to get people to mark a checkbox for sharing their data with Facebook, having them agree to a general terms and conditions document is not specific enough.

    6. Re:Totally meaningless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Wow. Calling europe corrupt while discussing law that has been passed down that actually benefits citizens and means huge investments and work for all businesses in and acting in europe.

      You seem to gloss over the fact that proposals are still requested, debated and ultimately accepted or declined by the european parliament, which is democratically chosen.

      European commisionars can actually be removed by the european parliament.

      If you're so afraid of lobbying power, why single out the european commission? Look at the executive branch in nearly any country.

    7. Re:Totally meaningless by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative
      There are two reasons:

      The first is that, when WhatsApp launched, it made a big deal about privacy. It was founded by someone who grew up in the USSR and knew precisely how important it was to have a secure way of communicating that wasn't subject to interception. They provided end-to-end encryption and a privacy policy that explicitly prohibited sharing data with other companies or using it for advertising. They had a pretty reasonable business model: the service was free for the first year and then $1/year after that (the hosting costs were nowhere near that - they were using Erlang on FreeBSD on the server side and last I heard [a couple of years before Facebook bought them] could handle around a hundred thousand users per machine). At the very least, this should prevent them from sharing any data from users that signed up on the old T&Cs with Facebook and should require that Facebook provide them with a grace period to migrate to another service before changing the T&Cs.

      That might be shaky, but the second point is a lot stronger: the EU antitrust regulator made not sharing data with Facebook an explicit requirement when allowing the purchase to go ahead. Facebook agreed to this before they bought WhatsApp and are now saying 'oh, actually, that's really hard so we don't want to do it'.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    8. Re:Totally meaningless by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Calling europe corrupt while discussing law that has been passed down that actually benefits citizens and means huge investments and work for all businesses in and acting in europe.

      Well I don't think this law does benefit citizens. It certainly doesn't mean 'huge investments' - in fact the most it could do is to convince Facebook and WhatsApp to close their EU offices. And even if a particular law did benefit citizens, that wouldn't change the fact that EU institutions are less accountable than the national institutions in EU countries.

      You seem to gloss over the fact that proposals are still requested, debated and ultimately accepted or declined by the european parliament, which is democratically chosen.

      Where, on multiple occasions your country is outvoted. And the UK is most often in the minority.

      https://www.theguardian.com/wo...

      However the problem is more fundamental than that. There is no European demos

      http://www.lse.ac.uk/europeanI...

      In which case why have votes on internal matters taken at the European level? I can see that trade between countries - the European equivalent of US 'interstate commerce' needs to have rules. However EU rules go much further than that. The larger the superstate, the more risk your views will be in the minority.

      You can see these problems in the US, except that in the US Federal politicians are elected. So in principle they can be removed by the electorate even if in practice gerrymandering makes this unlikely.

      The EU isn't particularly popular in opinion polls in any European country but it could be argued the UK is more Eurosceptic than for example France and Germany. France and Germany seeing merging into a superstate as the way to stop fighting each other. The UK doesn't see things this way.

      European commisionars can actually be removed by the european parliament.

      The European Commission can be removed. Not individual commissioners. And that has happened once. Due to corruption.

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

      There's no way to get rid of individual commissioners by voting for someone else.

      If you're so afraid of lobbying power, why single out the european commission? Look at the executive branch in nearly any country.

      My point is that EU structures are designed to be less accountable than national structures. An individual commissioner voting for an unpopular law in return for a payoff is very unlikely to face any sanction. And turnout for EU Parliament election is low and no one really cares about the result compared to national elections. So MEPs are unlikely to face any sanction either.

      You can make a case for UK or US national structures needing to be reformed to make politicians more accountable but the EU is designed to be step in the exact opposite direction. An individual good law or two doesn't change that.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    9. Re:Totally meaningless by manu0601 · · Score: 1

      All they'll achieve is that Facebook/WhatsApp shut down their physical office in France and operate from somewhere else instead, probably somewhere outside the EU.

      Then they just have to play it the US way: seize assets, get executives arrested when they travel outside of US, extradite and prosecute them.

  3. The WhatsApp app (somewhat off-topic) by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

    The WhatsApp app is terrible -- it demands that you give it access to all of your phone contacts before you're allowed to start sending messages with it. You can't block contact access and just tell it to message a specific number.

    Bad design, but fits right in with FB's data mining plans.

    1. Re:The WhatsApp app (somewhat off-topic) by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Another terrible thing is that when you change phones you lose your chat history. Technically there's a backup option to Google drive and SD card but when both fails you search and find it fails for loads of people and no one knows why or how to fix it.

      https://forums.oneplus.net/thr...

      So Facebook have my chat history but WhatsApp won't let me see it on a new phone. Gee thanks, you utter fuckknuckles.

      Back before Facebook owned the company of course it was actually a pretty decent application that effectively let you send free SMSs. Now it's a designed to make sure that FB have your data and you don't.

      But as with Facebook Messenger, LINE and Skype you pretty much have to install it to talk to its captive user base. Funny thing is when telephones got to be essential to talk to people the telcos got regulated as common carriers. Of course Facebook and WhatsApp are not going to be regulated as common carriers, but ISPs are. Even though in most places I can switch from DSL to cable or mobile and not lose contact with people, but that's not true if I get rid of Facebook. Facebook bans people for having heretical opinions, and that's apparently fine. And to add insult to injury FB is lobbying heavily for ISPs to be regulated as common carriers and buying up companies like WhatsApp which would otherwise be competition. Brilliant.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    2. Re: The WhatsApp app (somewhat off-topic) by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      So Facebook have my chat history but WhatsApp won't let me see it on a new phone. Gee thanks, you utter fuckknuckles.

      That's not a bug, it's a feature.

      No, I'm actually serious. You utter fucknuckle. The reason they can't show you your chat history is because they don't have it. When you use WhatsApp, unlike some other chat apps, your messages are generally either sent fully encrypted straight to the recipient, or, if the recipient cannot be reached directly, are sent via a WhatsApp server acting as an intermediary. If the latter, the server only stores the message long enough to confirm that your intended recipient had received it; after that it is deleted.

      Personally, that's what I love about the service. I am more than happy to take responsibility for my own backups if it means that I don't have yet another mega-corp maintaining decade long histories of all of my interactions. Since you appear to care more about convenience than privacy, perhaps WhatsApp is not the service for you.

    3. Re:The WhatsApp app (somewhat off-topic) by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      Happy medium: allow export of the chat history to a new phone via WiFi, bypassing the "clown." No need to save data on WhatsApp's servers.

    4. Re: The WhatsApp app (somewhat off-topic) by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      The reason they can't show you your chat history is because they don't have it.

      It's on the phone. There's a backup feature to Google drive or SD card, the problem is that sometimes (always?) a new phone will fail to restore the backups

      https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/an...

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    5. Re: The WhatsApp app (somewhat off-topic) by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      It's on the phone. There's a backup feature to Google drive or SD card, the problem is that sometimes (always?) a new phone will fail to restore the backups

      Well, that's a different thing entirely. You said "Facebook have my chat history" and I was pointing out that they do not.

      I was not aware of the backup problems with the app, but that's because I never use it; my devices are all rooted and I just do nightly backups of all my app data with TitaniumBackup. If the backup feature in the app is that unreliable I can certainly understand your frustration.

    6. Re: The WhatsApp app (somewhat off-topic) by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      I haven't got Titanium Backup because I haven't rooted either device. Tried both Google Drive and copying the Whatsapp Folder and neither worked.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    7. Re:The WhatsApp app (somewhat off-topic) by Malc · · Score: 1

      You should get an iPhone: the iOS version backs up to iCloud. Like they say: it just works :)

      My biggest problem with it is that it 1) strips all exif info from photos, and 2) over compresses/down-rezes everything. #1 is inline with it's privacy ethos, but both are annoying when you have friends who use it as the only way to share photos.

  4. Bullshit by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "After all, WhatsApp never told its users it was collecting data for business intelligence and there's no way to opt out without uninstalling the app. That violates "the fundamental freedoms of users," said the CNIL."

    No, that's the "trying to have your cake and it it, too" freedom. If it's free, you're the product. No way around that, short of opting out. If enough people do it, well, then the business model might change.

    1. Re:Bullshit by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Businesses operate within the rules of society, their society has different rules than yours.

      Just because you don't approve doesn't mean they can't do it.

    2. Re:Bullshit by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

      If it's free, you're the product

      WhatsApp was free for the first year to build network effects and then $1/year (which was more than enough for cover operating costs). Users signed up to this and moved a lot of their communication to the platform. Facebook then moved to make it 'free' on the assumption that they could violate the terms that they agreed to with the EU antitrust regulator which prohibited using it for data mining. As I understand it, users are no longer offered the option of paying for the service.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  5. Re:OK, but users bear some responsibility here. by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    and a big fuck you to everyone who used WhatsApp before Facebook bought it because they didn't want to use Facebook Messenger.

  6. Chat history by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 1

    Another terrible thing is that when you change phones you lose your chat history.

    I'd call that a feature!

    What's so important about past chats anyway? Chat away about whatever, move on. Another day, another round. Photos etc can be saved as desired.

    1. Re:Chat history by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      If you moved to a new computer and lost all your old emails/files would you consider that a feature?

      Maybe *you* would, but some of us actually like having the option of keeping our data until we decide to delete it.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    2. Re:Chat history by hazem · · Score: 1

      > I'd quite like to keep that for sentimental reasons.

      I'm so sorry for your loss.

      Some family members have set up a WhatsApp group for sharing pictures and stories about a toddler in our family. I've been wanting to capture all of this to share with her when she's older - especially things from her grandmother who's in ill health.

      I'm on Android, using Linux on my home computers. One thing you can do from the WhatsApp app is "Email Chat". If you don't attach media, you can send at least up to 9 months of the texts of the messages to an email address. This won't include media, nor text that's a caption for the media.

      Another option is to set up WhatsApp Web. This works okay if your phone is on your home wifi - the phone essentially becomes a web server and you can interact with WhatsApp on your computer. You can NOT print the messages, unfortunately (arg!). But I've found you can save the html and all the contents seem to be in there - except for the media itself. That may still be on the phone in the WhatsApp folder - however the names of media dn't match what's in the folder on the phone. I also found that I was able to use a media downloading app to capture and download all the pictures. It's not ideal, but at least the filenames seem to match what's in the html - and with some tweaking/scripting, it might be possible to get the html to refer to the downloaded pictures instead of "blob" images that are served by the phone.

      Another thing I did was set up a screen capture tool to capture a video of me scrolling through the WhatsApp Web so that everything is in that and maybe some future technology can break it all back apart into something usable.

  7. FB stalking by mattr · · Score: 1

    I installed Whatsapp because it is very popular in Europe. For those who do not know, it is telephone number based chatting with ability to attach photos and voice memos to a chat, and now you can call for free through Whatsapp. It is useful for meeting up with a team at the hotel for example when you are all arriving at different times. I found groups stay active even long after a project ends though. I did not realize this info is going to Facebook though and I really don't like the idea that what is a critical business tool could be used to let FB stalk me or my colleagues even if they don't have FB. Just another input to their social network analyzer but personally I try not to use FB and only have an account in defense. I'm older skool and don't feel comfortable tweeting all my activities to the entire world where it is archived forever. If Whatsapp told me they would feed my activity to FB I would have brought it up at a meeting and suggested something else like email maybe.

    1. Re: FB stalking by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      The only data they have is which numbers you are interacting with and when.

    2. Re: FB stalking by cc1984_ · · Score: 1

      The only data they have is which numbers you are interacting with and when.

      Not sure this is correct. End to end encryption is for individual chat windows. Group chatting can be read by the mothership.

    3. Re:FB stalking by coofercat · · Score: 1

      As you note, it essentially provides the features your phone should provide by default, but the operators are too slow to adapt, and so haven't got around to it yet.

      However, to use Whatsapp, you have to let it have access to all your contacts. Therefore, Whatsapp (and Facebook) know the phone numbers of all the people you have in your phone. Since Facebook also asks for your phone number, they can tie your contacts to real humans pretty easily. Even without that, they can still infer much the same information by watching who you talk to, and who they talk to, etc etc.

      The other thing to note about Whatsapp is that if you have it installed it of course reads your contacts whenever it wants, so any new contacts you add also get sent to the FB surveillance supercomputer. Thus, not only does facebook know who you meet, but when - even though you didn't ever log onto facebook (or even use whatsapp to talk to people).

      All this stuff is pretty scary sounding (to me), but the likes of my wife don't see any sort of problem with it. I've gradually been trying to get over to Telegram for IM purposes, but I've literally got 3 contacts on there (although my doorbell is also Telegram connected). I use Signal as an SMS replacement, but have yet to be friends with anyone else who uses it.

    4. Re: FB stalking by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Not sure this is correct. End to end encryption is for individual chat windows. Group chatting can be read by the mothership.

      As explained in their white paper (warning, PDF), group chats support full end-to-end encryption. Your client encrypts multiple copies of the message using the keys of each person in the conversation, and then sends them out as individual messages.

    5. Re:FB stalking by sanf780 · · Score: 1

      I find Line the most sane of the bunch, at least regarding the TOS. Unfortunately, I only have one contact in this Japanese focused IM tool. I tell the other people to send me e-mails.

  8. Re:OK, but users bear some responsibility here. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

    When WhatsApp launched, it made a big deal about privacy. They provided end-to-end encryption and a promise not to share your data with any other company, including a parent company if they were bought. The terms imposed by the EU regulator before permitting Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp required that they honour this and not share data. People might be naive for expecting Facebook to obey this, but many of them previously voted with their wallets to avoid Facebook (WhatsApp was a paid service, free for the first year and then $1/year, not one supported by adverts).

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  9. Re:Information wants to be free by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

    I think this day in age that saying has another, more sinister meaning... in light of constant data breaches, wikileaks and similar, or really - the distributed nature of the internet in general, information wants to be free, and will always find a way to go public.