WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

Post by techrat » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 12:02 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #59

godelski wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talk to my friends, parents, and family about it a lot. They don't understand it, but they do care. Problem is that they don't understand how to fight back. They do not want to give up on Facebook. They also are afraid to switch to a service like Signal because "no one is there." So I think they care, but there's a big sense of helplessness. Honestly that's why I like projects like Signal. There's no way I can get…

> They also are afraid to switch to a service like Signal because "no one is there." I've been thinking about this a bit, and I'm going to stop short of asking people to switch, and just try to get them to install it (and maybe even get them to casually suggest their friends do the same, if the opportunity arises). It's a hopefully small, risk-free step to take, and the more people that have installs, the more likely…

Post by Cthulhu_ » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 12:10 PM UTC

goldenchrome wrote: post #16

purplecats wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like I will just give up and use WhatsApp and assume that I only had privacy pre-internet. Yup, this is it. The point they've been waiting for us to cross. It was inevitable imo to not give up and surrender to it. It feels like we as a society are slowing transcending from the 4th to the 5th stage of grief.

I don’t think non-nerds really think about privacy online all that much. This privacy catastrophe is only felt in places like HN.

Post by jnxx » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 12:16 PM UTC

beforeolives wrote: post #165

jnxx wrote: post #157

> WhatsApp has been facing one hell of a backlash ever since it shared that it wanted to update its privacy policy with changes that would allow Facebook to aggregate all of its users' data across all of its services. I think this is bad. But also a general tendency: Accumulations of data are valuable to companies which exploit them. Larger accumulations of data are even more valuable, in a non-linear way. This is be…

> Without effective regulation, one day, Facebook's data and Google's data will probably be combined. Can you elaborate on why you think this might happen? It doesn't seem like an obvious outcome to me.

Post by alpaca128 » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 12:27 PM UTC

techrat wrote: post #182

kelnos wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They also are afraid to switch to a service like Signal because "no one is there." I've been thinking about this a bit, and I'm going to stop short of asking people to switch, and just try to get them to install it (and maybe even get them to casually suggest their friends do the same, if the opportunity arises). It's a hopefully small, risk-free step to take, and the more people that have installs, the more likely…

> "no one is there" will start becoming not true, even if not immediately. Still waiting for that to be the case. After 6 years of using Signal, I have a whopping... two... people in my contacts who also use it. The most common response is still "Why don't you just use Whatsapp?" Pretty much the only way we're going to see critical mass with Signal is if someone like Google were to make it their default platform for…

Post by JohnJamesRambo » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 12:31 PM UTC

matkoniecz wrote: post #115

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What in the world? They don’t have to use it. This has to be one of the worst arguments I’ve ever seen. Did your friends throw their iPhones in the trash when ApplePay came about?

Is ApplePay associated with endless scams like ICO, extremely problematic security requiring extreme experience to avoid theft, massive transfer fees, lack of usability, endless scams and massive spam advertising such scam everywhere? And several other serious problems.