WhatsApp has released some new conditions and privacy policies of use for its application, and from now on, it will show you a window for you to accept them if you want to continue using the application. If you do not accept them, your account will not be deleted, but WhatsApp will eventually become unusable and you will not be able to use almost any function.
So that everything is clear to you, we are going to explain what changes with this new privacy policy and conditions of use that have begun to be implemented on May 15, 2021, and we will also tell you what happens if you do not accept them.
What changes in the new privacy policies
Facebook bought WhatsApp for 16,000 million dollars in 2014, and although during that acquisition process they assured the European Commission that they did not have a reliable or automatic way of linking the WhatsApp and Facebook accounts of their users, the time has shown that they were lying. As soon as the purchase was completed, Facebook announced that they would start combining this data, and this led them to have their first run-ins with a European Union that accused them of providing misleading information.
The point is that the new privacy policy that you are proposing to accept from May 15, 2021, is a new step in that direction. In it, it is accepted that the data of non-European users of WhatsApp will be shared with the rest of Facebook services, a change that was initially going to be mandatory, but as we will see at the end now it is not.
The important thing is to know that this change at the moment does not apply to users from member states of the European Union due to the European data protection regulation, the GDPR. This rule prevents Facebook from sharing WhatsApp data with its other companies for their interest.
This is partly because users from member countries of the European Union, such as Spain, France, Italy, and the rest, use the WhatsApp Ireland Limited company app instead of the American company WhatsApp LLC. WhatsApp did this to have a separate company in Europe that is governed by the rules of Brussels, which protects users by offering them the conditions and agreements that have been reached with the European Commission.
By sharing this data, Facebook intends to achieve more complete profiles of all its users by unifying the information you give it (and the information you don’t give it but collects anyway) in all its applications in a single profile. This will help you better target advertising campaigns to the personal tastes of your users, and thus earn more money with more effective advertising.
But not everything is so pretty, because, even though at the moment it does not affect us European users, Facebook still wants you to accept these new conditions. This is so because it is negotiating an agreement with the Irish Data Protection Commission, the company’s headquarters, to achieve a future mechanism that allows them to cross the data.
In this way, if shortly you reach an agreement with the relevant entities to be able to cross the data, we will have already accepted these new conditions of use, and it will cost you less to start it up.
What happens if you do not accept the conditions of use of WhatsApp
If you do not accept the conditions, you will receive constant reminders to do so, and after a few weeks, the application will display a persistent reminder. When this happens, the app will go into a limited functionality mode, in which you will not be able to use most of its functions.
For starters, you won’t be able to access your chat list, so you won’t be able to see your messages or tap on one to chat. If the messages come to you through notifications, then you will be able to read what appears in the notification and respond from it if you have Android. You can also answer calls and video calls.
After a few weeks of limited functionality, you will also no longer be able to receive calls and notifications, and WhatsApp will stop sending messages and calls to your phone. This means that WhatsApp will be rendered useless, and for practical purposes, it will be of no use to you.
WhatsApp will not delete your account, as when it initially threatened to do so, people complained en masse and decided to back off. However, as you can see, for practical purposes it is as if it did.
Sharlene Meriel is an avid gamer with a knack for technology. He has been writing about the latest technologies for the past 5 years. His contribution in technology journalism has been noteworthy. He is also a day trader with interest in the Forex market.
