WhatsApp to cut off Irish users if they don’t agree to more interaction with Faceboo

#1 · 12-05-2021 04:23PM #1

https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/whatsapp-to-cut-off-irish-users-if-they-dont-agree-to-more-interaction-with-facebook-and-local-businesses-40418040.html

Time to switch to Signal en mass, call their bluff.

bassy · 12-05-2021 04:26PM

faceboo is that new

biddyearley · 12-05-2021 04:28PM

Time to delete the app.

What other messaging app can anyone recommend?

biko · 12-05-2021 05:12PM

Telegram and Signal.
There are more out there.

The new rule has proved controversial across Europe. It opens it up to businesses on Facebook that want to connect WhatsApp users.
Yesterday, one of Germany’s biggest data protection regulators, Hamburg’s Johannesburg Caspar, said that it viewed the messaging app’s new terms of use as illegal.

"If the app is free you are the product being sold" has never been truer.

McMurphy · 12-05-2021 05:25PM

Telegram ftw anyway.

_Kaiser_ · 12-05-2021 05:26PM

Unfortunately the reality is that most users won't care or don't read the terms and conditions anyway.. They'll just accept regardless.

Unless everyone else you talk to on WhatsApp is willing to switch too, adopting other apps won't work.

12-05-2021 05:30PM

What info are they gathering?

AndrewJRenko · 12-05-2021 07:48PM

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Unless everyone else you talk to on WhatsApp is willing to switch too, adopting other apps won't work.

You don't need EVERYONE to switch. Just switch to Signal and use it as your first choice. Over time, you'll find more and more people on Signal. If you don't switch, you're holding others back from switching.

Suckit · 15-05-2021 06:01PM

14 new contacts on signal today, in my contacts.
There will be many people who will not accept the new t&c's. There will be many (most) that will just accept and not care, but if they want to contact the other on a messenger style app, they will be forced to switch.
I haven't updates on, so I need to manually update. When whatsapp forces me to update, I won't be accepting the t&c's.
It won't bother me if I have to leave groups or contacts etc.

francois · 15-05-2021 06:24PM

fvp4 wrote: »

What info are they gathering?

Contacts, location, phone number, profile pic, device make type and OS level, IP addresses, who you have chatted with, if they can be linked back to your Facebook profile for starters

15-05-2021 06:58PM

Telegram has even worse privacy than WhatsApp. No end-to-end encryption, and owned by a shady enough pair of Russians. Main servers located in Dubai.

Spocker · 15-05-2021 07:02PM

Tis all there in black and white: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/privacy-policy?eea=0#privacy-policy-key-updates

Suckit · 15-05-2021 08:17PM

fvp4 wrote: »

What info are they gathering?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/14/you-should-be-worried-about-how-much-info-whatsapp-shares-with-facebook

Dempo1 · 15-05-2021 08:25PM

I feel left out, I've not had any requests to accept any new terms and conditions

should I WhatsApp them

Personally I care less, I've never had a Facebook account and never will. The only thing that would force me to stop using WhatsApp is adverts.

Larbre34 · 15-05-2021 08:30PM

Yeah, no, I've had very lightly used Facebook for about 12 years, its been useful for births deaths and marriages, but won't be missed.

Time for Facebook profile to go and FB and WA apps to be deleted.

astrofool · 15-05-2021 08:36PM

biko wrote: »

Telegram and Signal.
There are more out there.

"If the app is free you are the product being sold" has never been truer.

telegram and signal are also free...

SnuggyBear · 15-05-2021 08:53PM

Good luck getting people to move to something else. Most people don't care about privacy. I don't have a Facebook account and I'd rather not use anything made by them but I have no hope of getting friends and family to move to something else.

irishgeo · 15-05-2021 08:57PM

francois wrote: »

Contacts, location, phone number, profile pic, device make type and OS level, IP addresses, who you have chatted with, if they can be linked back to your Facebook profile for starters

EU law bans them from sharing user data with Facebook

Suckit · 15-05-2021 09:03PM

SnuggyBear wrote: »

Good luck getting people to move to something else. Most people don't care about privacy. I don't have a Facebook account and I'd rather not use anything made by them but I have no hope of getting friends and family to move to something else.

I would agree until now, but coupled with the type of publicity this has been getting in the media, especially this last week, it would be easier now than ever to convince people.
I personally for example, won't be accepting the new t&c's.
If anyone wants to contact me, it will have to be through Signal or SMS once whatsapp have stopped my last version from working.
Assuming there will be others of the same opinion, then there will more people migrating to others (right now signal seems the most popular), and that might just gather some momentum.
Last year if most people randonly switched to signal at any time, there would likely be nobody in their contacts on it. That will change and will be easier for more to move from now I suspect.

mcmoustache · 15-05-2021 09:25PM

irishgeo wrote: »

EU law bans them from sharing user data with Facebook

Irish law forbids me from purchasing narcotics but here we are.

Honestly, people should just take a look at the data in the recent leak and understand that in the constant battle between securing and leaking data, leaking only needs to win once.

irishgeo · 15-05-2021 09:44PM

mcmoustache wrote: »

Irish law forbids me from purchasing narcotics but here we are.

Honestly, people should just take a look at the data in the recent leak and understand that in the constant battle between securing and leaking data, leaking only needs to win once.

Signal could have a data leak issue too. terms says it can optionally upload your contacts to its servers and may encrypt or hash them.

Suckit · 15-05-2021 09:54PM

irishgeo wrote: »

Signal could have a data leak issue too. terms says it can optionally upload your contacts to its servers and may encrypt or hash them.

Realistically, they all do. Android sms is worse then whatsapp, silence only offers a relatively small layer of protection.
IIRC iMessage is the most secure of all, but not openly available on android (it is possible with a lot of faffing around but not worth it).
Until somebody comes up with a properly encrypted and secure option, using anything that is not giving your information away to FB via whatsapp is a better option.

Dempo1 · 17-05-2021 08:29AM

Just curious is this Terms and Conditions issue only directed at people who have a Facebook account and WhatsApp account, does it affect people with just a WhatsApp account?

Spocker · 17-05-2021 08:59AM

It's for WhatsApp users, it doesn't matter if you have a FB account or not

Dempo1 · 17-05-2021 10:21AM

Spocker wrote: »

It's for WhatsApp users, it doesn't matter if you have a FB account or not

Then I'm definitely being forgotten about

, I've not heard a whisper, can one complain

Thanks

3DataModem · 17-05-2021 10:28AM

Telegram stores everything server side, including keys. Most users don't have E2E encryption, and it's not possible on desktop version. Anyone who thinks it is more secure than Whatsapp is - by most standards - wrong.

Signal is a lot better (it's what Whatsapp uses, so it must be good!) and has very strong E2E encryption.

wes · 17-05-2021 10:36AM

This may finally push people to use Signal.

Qiaonasen · 17-05-2021 11:29AM

Deleted WhatsApp in January. All family members in Ireland slowly moving when they realise they want to contact me and I am not going back. I am using signal and telegram. Have been for years. Telegram has it's flaws but I am not sure shady Russians is the main one. Telegram has refused many times to cooperate with governments the world over.

Security could be better by default. I recommend moving to matrix if anything. It is decentralise and hopefully the future. Think multiple distributed servers and clients and full open source. I'll settle for signal for now though if people bother to move.

The key in this is delete it yourself. And trust me. Your friends and family will come if they want to talk about you. You will miss nothing. Finally managed to move on from the Facebook ecosystem. Zuckerburg has no principles. The carry on he did to try and access the Chinese market was cringe inducing.

Marcos · 17-05-2021 02:14PM

FYI - I don't know if this has been posted before, and apologies if it has, but Whatsapp has changed it's group settings to include "everyone" by default, so people you don't know can add you to a group without your knowledge. Why I don't know, but you can be sure it's not for our benefit. It seems to make things easier for scammers and other nefarious uses.

So if you don't want to be included in groups without your knowledge.

Go to WhatsApp settings
Go to Account
Go to Privacy
Go to Groups
Change from Everyone to My Contacts.

Flinty997 · 17-05-2021 02:20PM

I see that message is going out on a all of the whatsapp groups I'm on.

Suckit · 17-05-2021 02:29PM

Yeah, I don't think it's something they changed, it's been there a while, but handy to change it anyway.

WhatsApp to cut off Irish users if they don’t agree to more interaction with Faceboo

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