It has been two years since WhatsApp was bought by Facebook for $16 billion and one of main worries for WhatsApp users back then was the how much Facebook would influence the Messaging company. At that time, the main worry was privacy and Co-founder Jan Koum calmed down the masses in a blog post at the time saying: “Respect for your privacy is coded into our DNA, and we built WhatsApp around the goal of knowing as little about you as possible.” This seems not to be the case today as the company is letting the guard down on some of its own restrictions, and has announced it will begin sharing a limited amount of user data — including individuals’ phone numbers — with parent company Facebook.
Flipping backward on their original promise of privacy, WhatsApp says that sharing this information means Facebook can offer better friend suggestions by mapping users’ social connections across the two services, and deliver more relevant ads on the social network. The major issue that come up now is spam.
On top of sharing its details with Facebook, WhatsApp wants to also look at ways of how businesses can use WhatsApp to contact customers. In their blog post, they suggest how banks can use WhatsApp to warn its users of potential fraudulent transactions, or notifications from airlines about delayed flights, so this means they company will have to update its privacy policy.
