The diverse demographics and varying maturity levels as internet users mean there is no single answer to this question. Previous attempts at “privacy as a differentiator” in search engines and browsers among others did not catch much of the Indian eye as consumers stuck to lite (low-internet consuming) apps or stock apps shipped with their phones. Privacy in areas like messaging, however, appears to be more intuitive than tracking search histories and cookies and more real with the recent chat leak stories. The scope of privacy concerns to get users to change apps depends on their inherent understanding of privacy violations and the “for and against” marketing that reaches their social circles.
While privacy is not such an important issue for Indian consumers, the risk of financial fraud or crime being committed on their name or their private or business conversations coming out in the public domain is very much a risk and many Indian consumers are concerned about the same. Around 15 percent of consumers in our LocalCircles survey in early January were planning to leave WhatsApp.
While the postponed date of the privacy policy from February to May 2021 along with teething issues with alternate apps are likely to slow the migration, there is a credibility crisis that WhatsApp is suffering at the moment.The question here is not whether this information is confidential or not, whether it is of value or not and whether it can cause a loss or not. The point here is, each of us individuals has the right to decide where and how our information should be used and who should have access to it. Why should any platform have that right or want that right? If any platform strives to acquire this right, users have to decide whether they want to use such a platform or not. Given the current concern about data privacy and policies by some leading players in the market; it is important that users have a choice and knowledge about alternatives that are available in the market.
Bala Parthasarathy, co-founder, MoneytapPrivacy is quickly becoming an important issue for middle-income Indian consumers. Even a year ago, the notion of privacy was an esoteric preoccupation for the elite, who consumed a lot of international news and more importantly, had a lot to lose if their data was compromised. Several factors have driven that change—public disputes about data sovereignty where the government is insisting the data of Indians stay in India, to embarrassing data leaks of credit cards to a spate of Chinese apps taking sensitive customer data abroad with little consent. These have caused a larger section of the population to become concerned about their data.What is harder to predict is how consumers will react to social media. In the last few weeks, many of us have installed Signal and Telegram and have seen a shift. But having three different apps—five if you include Insta and Snapchat—is unwieldy and unsustainable. Additionally, these platforms eventually need to monetise as well and it's unclear what they will do in the future. I've already noticed some of my friends' groups slowly move back to WhatsApp. With its biggest user base at stake, I highly doubt that Facebook will throw it away instead of finding a way to balance its monetisation goals with the evolving Indian privacy sentiments and if the consumers will ditch an addictive, free messaging platform.
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