Skip to footer

WhatsApp founder says privacy policy will not change in Facebook era

WhatsApp, which was recently acquired by Facebook, says its 'fundamental values and beliefs' will not be altered. 

|
Reuters
An illustration photo shows a man holding a smart phone with a Facebook logo as its screen wallpaper in front of a WhatsApp messenger logo.
  • By Matthew Shaer Correspondent

Earlier this year, Facebook announced it would acquire messaging app WhatsApp for a whopping $19 billion. Reaction could basically be divided into two categories: a) incredulousness at the sheer size of the deal and b) worries among privacy groups about what the future will bring for millions of current WhatsApp users across the globe. 

Today, Jan Koum, the CEO of WhatsApp, pushed back against critics in a strongly-worded post on the WhatsApp blog. Title: "Setting the record straight." 

"If partnering with Facebook meant that we had to change our values, we wouldn’t have done it," Mr. Koum wrote. "Instead, we are forming a partnership that would allow us to continue operating independently and autonomously. Our fundamental values and beliefs will not change. Our principles will not change. Everything that has made WhatsApp the leader in personal messaging will still be in place." 

Koum added that the platform did not ask for legal names, e-mail addresses, birthdays, workplaces, or home addresses; "we don't know your likes, what you search for on the internet or collect your GPS location," he wrote.

In the future, the company has no plans to change that policy, Koum said. 

Earlier this month, two non-profit groups, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy, publicly urged the FTC to block Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp. As the groups noted, in the past, WhatsApp had promised not to "collect user data for advertising revenue." Under Facebook, that might change, they argued. 

"Users provided detailed personal information to the company including private text to close friends," reads the complaint filed with the FTC. "Facebook routinely makes use of user information for advertising purposes and has made clear that it intends to incorporate the data of WhatsApp users into the user profiling business model."

In response, a Facebook spokesperson told CNET that "Whatsapp will operate as a separate company and will honor its commitments to privacy and security."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to WhatsApp founder says privacy policy will not change in Facebook era
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2014/0317/WhatsApp-founder-says-privacy-policy-will-not-change-in-Facebook-era
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe