I’ve yet to have someone correct me on this. The truth is, we don’t know how much damage will come from WhatsApp and Facebook lowering the walls between the two companies, but my gut is telling me that’s it’s not going to be good for your privacy. WhatApp has an abundance of this and while this data might seem useless to most, it’s the lifeblood that ad targeting algorithms survive on. It needs metadata, or data about your data. Well, the really scary thing is that Facebook doesn’t need a microphone. You know the whole idea that Facebook is showing you eerily suitable ads and we all jokingly say “our phones must be listening to us”. The potential in combining WhatsApp insights with Facebook ad targeting is terrifying and I’m not talking about the scaremongering you’ve heard. Your attention is a massive commodity and Facebook makes a lot of money from that. What do we say about products you don’t pay for? Yes, you are the product. Facebook only paid that because it believes the messaging platform can generate a lot more money in return. Remember that $16 billion that Facebook paid for WhatsApp? That figure isn’t something you should ignore. Well, in truth it’s just the biggest milestone in the continuation of this process really. This update itself wasn’t all that bad, but for me, it marks the start of Facebook’s monetisation of WhatsApp. In January, WhatsApp caused quite the furore with another privacy policy update which, if you wanted to continue using the app, you really had to accept. This would be just one of the run-ins Facebook would have with the European Commission who fined Facebook for misleading them, a fine which would be lose change down the back of Zuckerberg’s couch. In a since-deleted 2016 WhatsApp blog post, the company outlined plans to share WhatsApp user data with parent company Facebook claiming that “by coordinating more with Facebook, we’ll be able to do things like track basic metrics about how often people use our services and better fight spam on WhatsApp”. Indeed, as early as 2016, just two years after the takeover, the cracks in WhatsApp privacy-first mindset was starting to show by way of a privacy policy update. It emerged that WhatsApp’s departure from being privacy-focused and instead shifting towards feeding the Facebook advertising machine was a primary reason behind his decision to leave.
Koum would stay on at Facebook as a member of the board, before leaving in silence late in 2019. Back in 2014, WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum sold his app to Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook for in or around $16 billion. The primary reason why I decided to delete WhatsApp is privacy.
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