faceboook
WhatsApp is going to share your phone number with Facebook
11–20 of 91 posts
Re: WhatsApp is going to share your phone number with Facebook
#12This is why using phone numbers as account identifiers is a bad idea. (For the users, at least. Not necessarily for the companies who want to own those users.)
Re: WhatsApp is going to share your phone number with Facebook
#13The article specifies that we can opt out of it. But it doesn't say how to do it? Does it? Does anyone know how to opt out?
Just did a bit of digging, seems there are two ways:
Re: WhatsApp is going to share your phone number with Facebook
#14What's the big deal?
WhatsApp has always said to take user privacy seriously. It's been one of their arguments of being a subscription-based app instead of free when they were not owned by Facebook yet: they didn't want to show any ads.
Now, this pretty much sums it up:
> Another change is potentially more controversial: WhatsApp says it will begin "coordinating" accounts with Facebook by sharing WhatsApp users' mobile phone numbers and device information, such as the type of operating system and other smartphone characteristics. The company says Facebook will employ the phone number internally to better identify WhatsApp users on Facebook, so it can recommend friends or show targeted advertising.
Re: WhatsApp is going to share your phone number with Facebook
#15The article specifies that we can opt out of it. But it doesn't say how to do it? Does it? Does anyone know how to opt out?
Technically, you can but you a limited time window. https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/general/26000016 This is a dark pattern. In fact, once you say "Agree" you only have 30 days to opt-out. > After you agree to our updated Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, you will have an additional 30 days to make this choice by going to Settings > Account > Share my account info in the app. I can't see such an option on my phone.
> Technically, you can
Technically you can't
The Facebook family of companies will still receive and use this information for other purposes such as improving infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our services or theirs are used, securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities.
Re: WhatsApp is going to share your phone number with Facebook
#16[deleted]
Re: WhatsApp is going to share your phone number with Facebook
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Technically, you can but you a limited time window. https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/general/26000016 This is a dark pattern. In fact, once you say "Agree" you only have 30 days to opt-out. > After you agree to our updated Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, you will have an additional 30 days to make this choice by going to Settings > Account > Share my account info in the app. I can't see such an option on my phone.
> Technically, you can Technically you can't The Facebook family of companies will still receive and use this information for other purposes such as improving infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our services or theirs are used, securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities.
There are some places where your phone number will be used regardless of your choice - spam/abuse and there are some parts where it would not be used - targeted ads.
Re: WhatsApp is going to share your phone number with Facebook
#18This is why using phone numbers as account identifiers is a bad idea. (For the users, at least. Not necessarily for the companies who want to own those users.)
Arguably WhatsApp would have gotten nowhere if they required users to construct screen names and manually build their social graph on yet another service.
It seems like every popular "personal" messaging service since Facebook got that way by bootstrapping on top of smartphone contacts.
Re: WhatsApp is going to share your phone number with Facebook
#19What happens if a whatsapp user doesn't have a Facebook account? More interestingly, what if a someone never uses FB account on his/her phone, like I do?
Re: WhatsApp is going to share your phone number with Facebook
#20I'm like 99% certain they've been doing this for a while. I've noticed that anybody I talk to using WhatsApp quickly appears as a suggested contact on Facebook. As far as I'm aware, I did nothing to enable this.
It does seem awfully creepy, but I guess if you care about privacy you're not using Facebook much anyway…