WhatsApp announced some new updates to its privacy policy and terms and conditions today, which showed that the company will begin encouraging users to share their account
information with Facebook.
The over-the-top (OTT) messaging service is owned by Facebook. To have an account, you have to have a verified phone number attached to it.
Facebook has no
such requirements, but wants to be able to connect the data from WhatsApp to its much more robust core data set, and has made its intentions to market across the platforms clear—though banner
ads are still not allowed on the messaging service.
WhatsApp also got rid of its $1 annual subscription fee a few months ago, but has been looking for ways to more effectively monetize its
service since.
Users are free to opt out of sharing their phone number between services, though the path to doing so is a little obfuscated.
As Facebook pushes toward marketing through
WhatsApp, they also have to assure users that the kinds of data they care about won’t be compromised.
“Nothing you share on WhatsApp, including your messages, photos and account
information, will be shared onto Facebook or any of our other family of apps for others to see, and nothing you post on those apps will be shared on WhatsApp for others to see,” says a blog post
on WhatsApp’s site.
WhatsApp has had end-to-end encryption in place for a while now. That means the company cannot see what’s being shared between users.