WhatsApp’s new privacy policies are giving it a boatload of trouble across the world, with people worried about their privacy, and actively switching from WhatsApp to Signal and Telegram. In the midst of the uproar against WhatsApp’s new policy (which Germany has already rejected outright), the company today filed an affidavit in the Delhi High Court.
As per a report from Inc42, WhatsApp’s affidavit cites the privacy policies of multiple companies, including Zoom and TrueCaller, as well as Indian start-ups BigBasket, Zomato, and Ola. The affidavit states that these apps’ privacy policies allow them to collect just as much data as WhatsApp’s new policy, and in some cases, even more data than WhatsApp will be able to collect.
“A review of the privacy policies of many internet-based applications and websites confirms that such policies include provisions describing the information they may collect that are similar to – and in many instances much broader than – those in the 2021 Update,” wrote WhatsApp in its affidavit.
For anyone not following along the entire WhatsApp saga this year, the company originally announced the new privacy policy in January of this year with a Feb 8 deadline for people to accept the new terms. However, following widespread criticism, the company delayed it to May 15.
Now, the company has clarified that it will not delete accounts of users who don’t accept the new policy by May 15, but will start stripping their account of WhatsApp features over the course of a few weeks, until they accept the new terms.
