A recent update now allows for the popular mobile messaging service, WhatsApp, to share your information with Facebook. If you are someone who might not like that, find out how to disable it in a few simple steps.
WhatsApp is one of the world’s top messaging apps for smartphones and was acquired by Facebook for a copious sum of money a year ago.
While the company has gone far to protect your confidentiality with the help of encrypted chats, a new update is making people share their WhatsApp information such as contacts, cell phone number, and other details stored in the app with Facebook for “a better experience”.
If you are content with how your WhatsApp and Facebook are sovereign and don’t wish to be included in the new program, you can opt out of the program with a few simple steps.
If you have yet to see the update, you will be greeted with a new screen as shown below. You can choose to “Agree” if you want to share your data between Facebook and WhatsApp, but if you want to opt-out of the program, click on the very bottom text which reads: “Read more about the key updates to our Terms and Privacy Policy“.
You will then be taken to the following screen where you will have a check-box at the bottom of the screen with a lengthy statement. When you uncheck the statement you will see a gray box of text appear which states: “When you tap “Agree”, your account info won’t be used to improve your Facebook ads and products experiences”
If you are curious about the benefits of opting to share your data, this is what the screen will say:
If for some reason you skipped the agreement and missed this splash page, all you need is to navigate to your “Accounts” page from the settings and look for the “Share my account info” checkbox.
Depending on whether you wish to share your data or otherwise, you can choose the setting on the checkbox as you see fit.
It is also worth mentioning that WhatsApp recently issued a statement where they are planning on sharing your data with companies [RT], this could mean targeted ads directly in your app, even though it goes against the brand philosophy of the app when it first came to be.
While it is nothing new for a company to go against their initial promise of staying free and otherwise pure, many great applications of our time have seen rough transitions such as utorrent which at one point vouched to always stay free but is now a former shell of a once great torrent client.
If WhatsApp does continue to go down the slippery slope of liberally sharing your data with Facebook AND companies, will you stay loyal to them or move on to a new messaging app? Let us know in the comments section below.