{"id":2383,"date":"2021-01-19T10:00:11","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T10:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/?p=1334556"},"modified":"2021-01-19T10:00:11","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T10:00:11","slug":"india-wants-whatsapp-to-retract-its-controversial-privacy-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=2383","title":{"rendered":"India wants WhatsApp to retract its controversial privacy policy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/tnw?filter_last=1&amp;fit=1280%2C640&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn0.tnwcdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F1%2Ffiles%2F2020%2F03%2FWhatsApp.jpg&amp;signature=82a024ae203e90309dac22090cf53f06\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>After user backlash, governments are also joining in criticizing WhatsApp\u2019s controversial privacy policy change. Today, the Indian government asked the app to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloombergquint.com\/business\/india-asks-whatsapp-to-withdraw-changes-to-privacy-policy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">withdraw its new&nbsp;policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter addressed to the WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart, the<span>&nbsp;Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said that these \u201cunilateral changes are not fair and acceptable.\u201d<\/span> This comes a day after WhatsApp\u2019s legal representatives <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ndtv.com\/india-news\/whatsapp-a-private-app-dont-join-if-not-accepting-new-privacy-policy-delhi-high-court-2354144\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">appeared in the Delhi High Court<\/a>&nbsp;to defend a petition that claimed the new privacy policy allowed snooping on users without any restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the month, WhatsApp informed users of <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/facebook\/2021\/01\/06\/heres-what-that-whatsapp-privacy-policy-pop-up-means-for-you\/\">a policy change through a pop-up in the app<\/a>. The new shift allowed WhatsApp to integrate better with the Facebook family of services and paved the way for businesses to interact with their customers.<\/p>\n<p>Users were furious with the amount of data collection specified in the privacy policy and handing it over to Facebook \u2014 which doesn\u2019t have a great record of handling user data safely. Tons of users started to migrate over <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/plugged\/2021\/01\/11\/whatsapp-telegram-signal-privacy-security-comparison\/\">to other apps such as Telegram and Signal<\/a>. To put out the fire, WhatsApp said that it\u2019s delaying its privacy policy changes by three months, and now <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/plugged\/2021\/01\/16\/whatsapp-delays-it-privacy-policy-update-by-three-months-but-whats-the-point\/\">it\u2019ll be applied on May 15<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Retaliation from the Indian government should concern WhatsApp as it\u2019s the app\u2019s biggest market with more than 400 million users. The Facebook-owned company aims to earn money through its commercial partnerships on WhatsApp Business. However, if it has to change the policy, it might have to alter its way of interacting with commercial customers.<\/p>\n<p>In the past, WhatsApp has strictly refused to <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/security\/2019\/06\/18\/india-is-still-hounding-whatsapp-to-make-its-messages-traceable\/\">entertain requests to break&nbsp;encryption<\/a> from the Indian government by presenting a privacy-first face. Now that the app\u2019s being questioned for its privacy practices, we\u2019ll have to see if it rejects the government\u2019s proposal again.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/in\/2021\/01\/19\/india-wants-whatsapp-to-retract-its-controversial-privacy-policy\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After user backlash, governments are also joining in criticizing WhatsApp\u2019s controversial privacy policy change. Today, the Indian government asked the app to withdraw its new&nbsp;policy. In a letter addressed to the WhatsApp&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}