WhatsApp, the main messaging service in the world, is encountering strong resistance to deploy the update of the terms and conditions of use of its application, which comes into effect this Saturday and in which it is specified that it will share data of its users with Facebook, your parent company. Several countries, including India and Brazil, the two largest WhatsApp markets, have decided to freeze its entry into force due to the doubts that such data transfer raises regarding privacy and the company's dominance position. At the same time, a group of activists has launched a campaign to stop the operation, which they consider aimed at creating a kind of super application that concentrates all the digital activity of people, as is the case with WeChat in China.
The review of the conditions was scheduled to be launched in February, but the wave of criticism it caused and the exodus of millions of users to rival messaging systems such as Telegram or Signal caused the company to delay it to better explain the changes. Those who do not accept the terms of use will not see their accounts deleted, but they will receive increasingly persistent messages asking them to agree to do so and will see the functions of the service progressively reduced until it is effectively disabled. In the European Union, users must also accept the new conditions, although these will have a much more limited effect than in the rest of the world because the General Data Protection Regulation (RGPD) does not allow data to be shared with Facebook.
Brazilian competition authorities requested last week that the release of the update in the country be postponed until it is clarified what type of data will be transferred from one application to another and for what purpose. Other countries made similar decisions: Turkey decided in January to suspend the application of the new contract while the regulator studies whether it offers sufficient privacy guarantees for citizens. In March, the Competition Commission of India ruled that the sharing of data by WhatsApp and Facebook is an “abuse of dominant position”, froze the change of conditions and launched an investigation that is still ongoing.
These three could be joined by more countries in the coming days, such as South Africa, Chile or Argentina, which has initiated an ex officio investigation. In Chile, where 90% of the population uses WhatsApp daily, representatives of the Digital Rights association, in favor of delaying the entry into force of the new conditions, met this Thursday with the National Economic Prosecutor's Office (FNE). “The conversation we had was very good. They did not set specific commitments, but they want to continue studying the case. We have high hopes that progress will be made ”, María Paz Canales, executive director of the Digital Rights association, tells EL PAÍS. In his opinion, the fact that the Chilean competition authorities have collaborated a lot with the Brazilians may contribute to the Andean country deciding to make similar decisions.
Advertising of the Stop Facebook Save WhatsApp campaign Stop Facebook Save WhatsApp
One of the most worrying elements in Latin America when talking about the possible abuse of WhatsApp's dominant position are the so-called
zero-rating
plans
: mobile data recharges in which the use of WhatsApp does not consume data.
According to Canales, the four main Chilean operators have plans of this type, very common throughout the continent.
These offers make it possible for the less well-off to communicate by instant messaging, and at the same time remain tied to the Facebook company.
Rejecting the new terms and conditions would mean for them to be cut off from communication.
The genesis of a super 'app'
Those that are rebelling are not just any countries: India has about 400 million users, and Brazil, with another 120. Together they account for more than a quarter of the 2 billion phones that have the application active. In both territories, in addition, it already operates one of its great bets for the future: its payment system, WhatsApp Pay, through which money can be sent or received without leaving the
app
. In India it has been operational since last year; in Brazil, after being banned at first by the competition authorities (CADE) and the Central Bank (Bacen), it has been in operation since the beginning of the month.
That WhatsApp payment service and the change in conditions that allows you to exchange data with Facebook may be related.
That is what Juliana Oms, a lawyer with the Brazilian Institute for Consumer Protection (Idec), believes at least, one of the organizations that have urged the authorities to intervene.
"The new privacy policy explicitly refers to the data collected by the WhatsApp payment service, which will be shared with Facebook," says the lawyer.
More information
How a professor of Philosophy in Zamora collaborated in the development of Signal, the alternative to WhatsApp
The fear of these defenders of privacy and consumer rights is that with WhatsApp what happened with the WeChat application, the most popular social network in China (1 billion users), will happen. In the Asian country, cash and credit cards are now totally expendable in large cities. From street stalls to shopping malls, everyone pays with their mobile from WeChat, which is also a payment platform and which hosts almost any service imaginable, from renting bicycles to shopping online.
“We believe that the update of the terms of use of WhatsApp has to do with their future plans. Facebook wants its products to become your internet; that you buy, pay, call, browse and do everything without leaving the
app,
”says lawyer and digital rights activist Renata Ávila, who was part of the defense team for indigenous leader Rigoberta Menchú in her native Guatemala and worked with Baltasar Garzón in defense of Julian Assange. “On the beaches of China you cannot pay with cash, in certain places in that country everything goes through WeChat. This is the next step that Facebook wants to take in India or Brazil ”. So that a super
app
The WeChat style takes shape, continues the jurist, there needs to be an express consent of the triangulation of data by users.
There are more ways in which data sharing between Facebook and WhatsApp can be lucrative.
One of the company's bets is WhatsApp Business, a service designed for companies that "helps to personally connect with your customers, highlight your products and services and answer their questions through their shopping experience."
For this tool to work well, the user data collected in recent years by both applications will be essential.
Those suspicions about the true intentions behind this operation have prompted the international Stop Facebook, Save WhatsApp campaign, coordinated by Ávila and which demands that the group led by Mark Zuckerberg reconsider the deployment of the new terms and conditions. Its organizers ask the competition authorities of the different countries to demand that the update of WhatsApp be optional or that cases of abuse of competition be opened against it. Since the campaign was launched at the end of April, says the lawyer, Facebook executives have met one by one with the organizations of each country integrated in the platform. Company sources confirm these contacts to EL PAÍS. “They know that if a couple more competition authorities, apart from Turkey, India and Brazil,they act, it can generate a chain effect that does not suit them ”, Ávila adds.
International reply
The United States is one of the few countries where WhatsApp does not dominate messaging communications.
There the most used services are Facebook Messenger and iMessage.
Despite this, a group of congressmen this week sent an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg asking him to reconsider applying the application update, which is widely used by immigrants.
Measures are also being taken in Europe, even though the update will have little effect in the EU.
Germany's regulator has issued a three-month "emergency ban" in which the company is not allowed "to continue with data collection" and has urged the other member states to do the same, according to AFP.
WhatsApp stresses that the new terms and conditions of the service do not include sharing contact details with Facebook or who you speak to. “Of course, Facebook cannot see our conversations, but it can see our metadata, which in the end is the most interesting: how long did I connect, from where, what itinerary I did or what types of data are shared,” illustrates Ávila.
“We have spent the last few months providing more information to our users about the update.
In this time, the majority of those who have received the update notice have accepted it, ”says a WhatsApp spokesperson.
According to a study by the consulting firm Appinio, 82% of Spaniards will accept the update, despite the fact that 77% of those surveyed feel concerned about the way the instant messaging service uses their data.
The evolution of the conditions of use
“WhatsApp does not collect names, emails, addresses or any other contact information from the [phonebook, digital yearbook] or contact list of its users. It only collects cell phone numbers (…) We do not collect location data (…) We do not sell or share your personal data (such as cell phone number) with other companies for commercial use or marketing (marketing) without your consent ”. Those were the terms of WhatsApp's privacy policy in 2012.
Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014 for around € 13.8 billion. At that time it was a buoyant 'startup' that was successful in Europe and had some 400 million users. Zuckerberg then assured that he would not touch the privacy policy of the instant messaging service. However, that happened only two years later, in 2016, when it already had 1 billion users. The company then said that coordination with Facebook would serve to deliver more relevant ads. He gave users 30 days to accept the new conditions.
"I think in recent years it has become clear to everyone that Facebook is a company that lives off people's data," says Carissa Véliz, an expert in digital privacy.
“And that begins to not like.
You have to show Facebook that its business model is bringing it more problems than advantages ”.
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