WhatsApp to share data with Facebook
WhatsApp to share data with Facebook.
Popular messaging app WhatsApp announced changes to its privacy policy where it will begin connecting phone numbers to its parent company Facebook.
To sign up to use WhatsApp you need to input and verify your phone number.
Facebook will also receive data analytics from WhatsApp.
Okay, so what's the plan?
WhatsApp says that the information being shared will help fight spam and abuse.
Facebook will use the information it gets from WhatsApp to offer friend suggestions.
And it should help with everyone's favorite thing, targeted ads.
WhatsApp says it will not post or share your WhatsApp number with others, including on Facebook.
And it will sell or share phone numbers with advertisers.
Additionally WhatsApp assures users that Facebook will not be able to read your encrypted messages.
If you do not have a Facebook account, which is really, really impressive, WhatsApp will not require you to create one.
WhatsApp updated terms and conditions is also letting everyone know that the company's working on ways to allow businesses To contact uses.
WhatsApp gave a few examples of how a business would interact with a user, like getting flight information, or receipts.
Facebook announced that it would purchase WhatsApp back in 2014 for a whooping 19 billion dollars.
At the time, WhatsApp had 450 million users.
In February of 2016, WhatsApp announced it hit the one billion user mark.
We'll see if those billion people are happy with the changes.
That's it for this tech news update, I'm Ian Zactar, and you can stay on top of the biggest stories at cnet.com/update.
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