In a series of tweets, the Facebook-owned messaging app confirmed it is pushing back the date from February 2021 to May, for now.

“Thank you to everyone who’s reached out. We’re still working to counter any confusion by communicating directly with WhatsApp users,” the company tweeted late on Friday (January 15).

“No one will have their account suspended or deleted on February 8, and we’ll be moving back our business plans until after May,” it said.

Whatsapp also published a blog post titled “Giving More Time for Our Recent Update” where it claimed that it would be giving everyone more time to understand the changes.

“We’ve heard from so many people how much confusion there is around our recent update. There’s been a lot of misinformation causing concern, and we want to help everyone understand our principles and the facts,” the company wrote.

“WhatsApp was built on a simple idea: what you share with your friends and family stays between you. This means we will always protect your personal conversations with end-to-end encryption so that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see these private messages. It’s why we don’t keep logs of who everyone’s messaging or calling. We also can’t see your shared location, and we don’t share your contacts with Facebook,” it said.

After explaining its reservations, the company said, “We’re now moving back the date on which people will be asked to review and accept the terms. No one will have their account suspended or deleted on February 8.”

“We’re also going to do a lot more to clear up the misinformation around how privacy and security work on

WhatsApp. We’ll then go to people gradually to review the policy at their own pace before new business options are available on May 15.”

The last 10 days have seen WhatsApp mired in a wave of controversy regarding privacy and user data. The company told users to accept certain terms and conditions or face deletion of their account.

WhatsApp rivals like Signal and Telegram have seen a massive surge in downloads and installs. Both the platform claim to be more secure than WhatsApp. WhatsApp has maintained that chats will remain secure and no one will see them. But the issue has been sharing of certain user data with Facebook and perhaps third-party apps, which has made users look for other options like Signal and Telegram.

The post WhatsApp delays implementing privacy policy after huge backlash appeared first on The Gulf Indians.

Along with another encrypted app, Telegram, Signal has been the main beneficiary of online outrage around the changes announced last week, which require WhatsApp users to share their data with both Facebook and Instagram.

Telegram said on Wednesday it had surpassed 500 million active users globally. Brian Acton, who co-founded WhatsApp before selling it to Facebook and then co-founding the Signal Foundation, declined to give equivalent data for Signal but said that the expansion in recent days had been “vertical”. “We’ve seen unprecedented growth this past week,” Acton said in an email to Reuters.

He also said Signal was working to improve its video and group chat functions, making it a better user-friendly messaging app than WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, and other conferencing apps.

Signal was downloaded by 17.8 million users over the past seven days. WhatsApp was downloaded by 10.6 million users during the same period, a 17% decline.

The post Signal to hire more staff to boost service appeared first on The Gulf Indians.

The disappearing message feature can be used for individual chats as well as groups.

To make use of the feature, users have to enable it by tapping on a contact’s name. The disappearing message option if turned on will delete the messages after seven days.

Announcing the feature, Whats App wrote in its blog, “We’re starting with 7 days because we think it offers peace of mind that conversations aren’t permanent, while remaining practical so you don’t forget what you were chatting about. The shopping list or store address you received a few days ago will be there while you need it, and then disappear after you don’t.”

The feature will be rolling out to users everywhere this month and both the Android and iOS users will get the new feature.

Disappearing messages will also wipe out photos and videos after seven days, and while messages will disappear for both parties it’s still possible to take screenshots or just simply copy messages before they’re automatically deleted.

The post WhatsApp launches much-awaited feature for users appeared first on The Gulf Indians.

Now, there is news that notes that some WhatsApp data will be shared with Jio which help WhatsApp users to carryout transactions on JioMart. The officials said that nothing more will be shared between Jio and WhatsApp, apart from data essential for transactions.

The data sharing relationship between Jio and WhatsApp could be similar to how it is between WhatsApp and Facebook. When WhatsApp integrated with Facebook, that according to Facebook, helps the company offer richer and more integrated services to both Facebook and Whats App users.

The primary focus of Jio and Facebook is to turn WhatsApp into a super app, similar to WeChat in China, through which users will not be able to chat but will also be able to buy goods or pay for services, even from local shops.

While collaborating with Reliance Jio , Facebook made it clear that this investment was aimed at building a viable e-retail platform centred around WhatsApp. Both Jio and Facebook wanted to create new ways for people and businesses to operate more effectively in a growing digital economy.

The post Whats App data of Indian users to be shared with Jio appeared first on The Gulf Indians.