Ask HN: Have you accepted the TOS that give FB access to your WhatsApp data? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Have you accepted the TOS that give FB access to your WhatsApp data?

#141

Post by tomerv » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #84

tomerv wrote: post #77

People seeing this post are split to 2 groups: - Those who didn't accept the new terms are glad to use the opportunity to virtue-signal. - Those who accepted the new terms are afraid to admit so. I'll bite the bullet: I accepted the terms. If you want more honest opinions, you should probably post an anonymous poll.

This is not a poll. The interesting part about this post is why people accept it or what they do in order to not accept it. You did not contribute anything interesting by saying "I accepted the terms".

My comment started a thread where people felt comfortable to explain why they accepted the terms, so I think I did contribute something.

Re: Ask HN: Have you accepted the TOS that give FB access to your WhatsApp data?

#142

Post by tomerv » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

sh4un wrote: post #96

tomerv wrote: post #77

People seeing this post are split to 2 groups: - Those who didn't accept the new terms are glad to use the opportunity to virtue-signal. - Those who accepted the new terms are afraid to admit so. I'll bite the bullet: I accepted the terms. If you want more honest opinions, you should probably post an anonymous poll.

I don't run Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp on my phone. I am not sure how hard it is to grasp that some people just don't use any of it. But I guess this is where you come to virtue signal about virtue signalling. Besides, when you boot up your phone and you see the Android logo, you're fucked anyways.

What is "virtue signal about virtue signalling"? If you don't need Whatsapp to communicate with your friends/family/colleagues then good for you. In my social circles Whatsapp is a must. Refusing to use it is almost like refusing to have a cellular phone, which is too high a price for me to pay.

Re: Ask HN: Have you accepted the TOS that give FB access to your WhatsApp data?

#143

Post by pmontra » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

tomerv wrote: post #77

People seeing this post are split to 2 groups: - Those who didn't accept the new terms are glad to use the opportunity to virtue-signal. - Those who accepted the new terms are afraid to admit so. I'll bite the bullet: I accepted the terms. If you want more honest opinions, you should probably post an anonymous poll.

I'm in a third group. I keep using WA or I'll have to call friends daily to keep up with them, until they block my number :-)

However I never accepted the new ToS. WA keep asking me to accept them and I don't (can't remember the actual wordings). It has been like that for months. I've even chatted with a business a couple of weeks ago. It seems they are doing like when they were asking for 1 Euro per year. They eventually gave up and never interrupted the service. The network effects of losing users work against them.

Re: Ask HN: Have you accepted the TOS that give FB access to your WhatsApp data?

#144

Post by siproprio » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

I don't remember having accepted it!

Now, I wouldn't be surprised if that data was shared anyway before I'd clicked, and that in the end, Facebook only pretended having given user's the choice!

And if Facebook provided me the choice, I would happily revoke my consent.

Re: Ask HN: Have you accepted the TOS that give FB access to your WhatsApp data?

#145

Post by jimkleiber » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

I think the question is asking one thing and asserting another:

- "have you accepted the TOS?" as the question

- "the TOS gives FB access to (all) your WhatsApp data" as the assertion

My questions: do you believe that this new TOS gives FB access to my WhatsApp data? If so, to which of my data? All of it?

I personally don't believe this TOS gives FB access to all of the communication data I have on WhatsApp, and thus rendering e2ee useless, yet, I'm open to learning how I might be wrong on that.

Re: Ask HN: Have you accepted the TOS that give FB access to your WhatsApp data?

#146

Post by dylan604 » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

meribold wrote: post #133

glitchcrab wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would WhatsApp ever have this functionality? It would do serious damage to the walled garden which they've so successfully built.

Conversely, it wouldn’t really make sense for Signal to interoperate with apps that don’t offer the same level of privacy.

Even with E2E, if both platforms offered the same standarized encryption, would this allow for cross-platform messaging? Of course, some mechanism for exchanging of public keys would be needed as well.

Re: Ask HN: Have you accepted the TOS that give FB access to your WhatsApp data?

#147

Post by Pym » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

Same.

Re: Ask HN: Have you accepted the TOS that give FB access to your WhatsApp data?

#148

Post by dylan604 » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #119

theden wrote: post #5

They should really have a "don't ask again" button. Is it really opt-in if they ask the user every time they open the app? It feels like it's opt-in by attrition.

It's not opt-in and they never claimed such a thing, it is a mandatory update to their terms of service for all users.

Mandatory? If it was mandatory and it was not accepted, then the app should close when the option is declined. Otherwise, cynical me thinks they are doing what they want even without your acceptance. Just because you haven't notified them that you've read the change doesn't mean the change hasn't been implemented.

Re: Ask HN: Have you accepted the TOS that give FB access to your WhatsApp data?

#149

Post by shawnz » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #148

shawnz wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not opt-in and they never claimed such a thing, it is a mandatory update to their terms of service for all users.

Mandatory? If it was mandatory and it was not accepted, then the app should close when the option is declined. Otherwise, cynical me thinks they are doing what they want even without your acceptance. Just because you haven't notified them that you've read the change doesn't mean the change hasn't been implemented.

I suppose they figured it would cause a lot of upset if they didn't provide a grace period to accept the new terms (and clearly that would have been the case, based on the reaction so far). Consider that people rely on WhatsApp for essential communication with family and colleagues and so on, and they may not have time to properly review the new terms if they were rolled out with no grace period.

Re: Ask HN: Have you accepted the TOS that give FB access to your WhatsApp data?

#150

Post by docflabby » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

The only way to opt out is to stop using it - clicking accept/reject will most likely make no difference at all especially given Facebooks past behavior - I believe you can't trust them to honor any "opt-out"...

Its my opinion its just a box ticking permission for what they are doing already....