Its now official. WhatsApp just stated that they’re sharing user data with Facebook.
In a blogpost updated moments ago, Whatsapp noted:
And by connecting your phone number with Facebook‘s systems, Facebook can offer better friend suggestions and show you more relevant ads if you have an account with them.
In addition to this, Whatsapp has said that it won’t share Whatsapp conversations or content of messages with anyone. That’s something not everyone is going to trust, especially when you consider Facebook’s new ball game.
Let’s not forget that Facebook had bought Whatsapp for a whooping 19 billion dollars. Clearly they didn’t invest this amount of money for a service that doesn’t even generate more than 1$ per customer per year, or in some cases not even a single penny for a lifetime.
What Does This Mean For Us?
Whatsapp had more than a billion active users as of February 2016, which means one in every seven individuals on earth has a Whatsapp account. Resultantly, Facebook — through this acquisition — will have access to major part of communication that we do, and just if you don’t know: more information means more money.
What’s more alarming for some customers would be the fact that Whatsapp could also give access to your communication to governments world over, especially the notorious NSA.
While its still early to say more on how this shared data is going to impact our lives, given the track record, we can predict that its not going to be very beautiful.
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