- The controversial updates to the WhatsApp privacy policy will not be released as planned, the company said today.
- Instead, the company will suspend the rollout for at least three months.
- This change in plans is most likely the result of an intense user response to the changes.
In an official blog post, WhatsApp announced today that it would “pause” the controversial updates to its privacy policy. The company said it wanted more time to “clean up the misinformation about how privacy and security work on WhatsApp”.
The delay is at least three months. However, there are no plans to make changes to the policy during this time.
WhatsApp is in a big mess
The move is a direct response to the not-so-subtle user reaction related to the policy changes. Essentially, the new WhatsApp privacy policy allows the company to take certain user data from WhatsApp and transfer it to other Facebook-owned objects, including the social network of the same name.
Connected: How WhatsApp shares your data with other Facebook brands
When the privacy policy changes were released last week, the public reaction was nothing short of brutal. It sparked a major exodus of WhatsApp users to other encrypted messaging platforms like Telegram and Signal. In the latter case, the servers crashed earlier today, partly due to the huge growth in users.
In the blog post, the company says that none of its privacy-related functions will change. It is stated that this new policy is aimed at making it easier for users to connect with businesses. Not many users currently admit this. However, it sees this as the future of its platform and is ready to take that leap – even if its users don’t.
In a poll here at Android AuthorityOnly about 10% of our readers said they were happy with the changes in WhatsApp’s privacy policy. If you want to delete your WhatsApp account, here are step-by-step instructions.