Stop Using WhatsApp If You Care About Your Privacy
Interesting times… your data is probably never safe unless you host and encrypt it yourself (at least relatively). But WhatsApp's creator has felt strong enough over the issue to resign and lose out on a lot of share options he could have sold later this year. Partly the issue has also been around Facebook wanting to "relax the encryption" somewhat. It is also somewhat concerning that one corporation owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp which means a control of a large part of the messaging market. At least with WhatsApp there are excellent competitors to consider… but are your friends using them 😉 Security and privacy are only as good as the weakest link in the chain, and if anything is compromised say at the server side, that comprises the whole security.
Privacy has always been a key feature and popular selling point for the messaging app WhatsApp. Company co-founder Jan Koum grew up in the Soviet Union under heavy government surveillance, and he promised to keep user data protected after Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014. Now, with Koum on the way out, it may be time ditch WhatsApp before that promise leaves with him.
According to The New York Times, as detailed by an anonymous Facebook executive, Koum was growing “increasingly concerned” by Facebook’s focus on collecting and selling user data. He attempted to push back where possible, but felt that Facebook’s board of directors “paid lip service to privacy and security concerns he raised.”
An engineer at WhatsApp also told the Times that without Koum, the rest of the team worries that Facebook may change the app to track even more data—and, someday, might even drop advertising into the app.
See https://lifehacker.com/stop-using-whatsapp-if-you-care-about-your-privacy-1825719172
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Stop Using WhatsApp If You Care About Your Privacy Privacy has always been a key feature and popular selling point for the messaging app WhatsApp. Company co-founder Jan Koum grew up in the Soviet Union under heavy government surveillance, and he promised to keep user data protected after Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014. Now, with Koum on the way out, it may be time ditch WhatsApp before that promise leaves with him. |