German Regulators Seek to Stop WhatsApp Sharing Data With Facebook

[macdrej]

Good to be living in Germany when it comes to these things. I’ve never accepted the new terms and I’m sure there won’t be a need to accept them, thanks to Germany and the EU.

Actually, in Germany there is much more a social pressure to use WhatsApp than in the States.

 

[iCole]

Whatsapp is awesome. Texting is so 90s. Facebook integration: Not so awesome.

 

[hagar]

I’m curious how you would enforce this. How do we know FB is not monitoring WhatsApp usage and linking it to user profiles? There’s no way of knowing.

 

[MRrainer]

No it's not, when your neighbors, your relatives, and most importantly your kids' school insists on WhatsApp groups.

I would be interested to know how they can compel you to install an app.

I don't have kids, admittedly.

 

[jlc1978]

Facebook is an ad-peddler. It's stupid to assume your data isn't used to sell more and "better" ads.

If you don't like that, just use another tool.

It's umfortunately a bit more complicated:

Unfortunately it‘s not that easy. You not installing Whatsapp doesn‘t prevent your contact details ending up on Facebook, it‘s the people who saved your contact details uploading your data.
I suppose that‘s the illegal part of it. No one should be able to decide for someone else to upload their data.

Exactly. Even if you never use it, as long as Facebook, WhatsApp etc. are granted access to contact lists your info is in they can hoover it up. As in some tagging of photos and they can discern more. The sheer amount of information they can collect without ever directly getting your permission is pretty vast; and it is no doubt an intel analysts dream and you don't have to spend time visiting conventions, trade shows, etc.. Although open source intel seems to still be a bit less in fashion.

 

[macdrej]

I would be interested to know how they can compel you to install an app.

I don't have kids, admittedly.

Obviously nobody grabs my phone and installs WhatsApp but if you don't use it, you're out of the loop. You don't have veto power if WhatsApp is what everyone loves to use all day. Family people especially don't live in a bubble where they can do as they please without consequences. That's why we need an open standard for these things like email.

 

[jlc1978]

Obviously nobody grabs my phone and installs WhatsApp but if you don't use it, you're out of the loop. You don't have veto power if WhatsApp is what everyone loves to use all day. Family people especially don't live in a bubble where they can do as they please without consequences. That's why we need an open standard for these things like email.

While open standards are good, they have their own issues, for example:

• Everyone doesn't fully implement the standard, so while it works not everything works everywhere. Using your email example, first.last@, firstlast@, and first.last+XXX@ are all the same, and valid email addresses but not all systems will recognize that.
• Companies want to add features but if they adhere to a standard they can't, so even with a standard we get various implementations with incompatible features:

• Standards generally represent the lowest common denominator and thus commoditize the product; companies try to find ways to differentiate their product so they add features unique to their implementation.
• An open standard is slow and hard to change, so companies develop their own standards to add more innovative features.

• Standards take a long time to adopt and require a lot of compromises, especially if differing nations are involved, and the compromises may mean features one country considers key gets left out in the end if more are against it. I doubt a strong end to end encryption standard would be welcomed by every country around the world, unless there was some back door they could still use to monitor communications, for example.

Legacy standards have a way of persisting even as better options become available simply because the are so widely in use. Look at the demand for USB-A even though USB-C is arguably a better option.