WhatsApp adamant about new user policy but won't limit user functionality

WhatsApp has met the Indian Government halfway and said that it won't limit user functionality until the new Personal Data Protection laws come into effect

Thanks to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, WhatsApp users from the region can simply say 'no' to WhatsApp's controversial new user policies which allow it to share user information with Facebook, its parent company.

The new terms and condition which went into effect on May 15, 2021, allows business on the platform to collect and share chats with users along with integration across Facebook products. For many, this is a tough pill to swallow since WhatsApp main draw was the end-to-end encrypted chat and a higher level of security provided by the platform.

While users in Europe can simply walk away from the new policies and not accept them, users in India are another matter. They have no choice but to accept the new terms or be faced with limited functionality on their accounts and eventual deletion.

Thankfully, the Indian courts and competition commission have not been sitting idle and view this as a serious threat to user privacy. The Facebook-owned chat platform has been put under severe pressure by the Indian courts to withdraw its policy that gives a higher preference to businesses over the users it built its platform's popularity on.

Now, after sustained pressure from the Indian courts, WhatsApp has decided to meet the Indian Government halfway and said it won't limit functionality for people not accepting the new policy, at least not until the new Personal Data Protection Laws for citizens comes into effect.

This means WhatsApp will still continue to prompt users with notifications on the new policies and why they should accept them and may eventually start limiting functionality.

The Indian government sees the new terms from WhatsApp as a form of bullying its biggest base of customers into accepting the new norms. As a customer, you also have the option to simply walk away from the chat platform, an option which is easier to consider given the popularity of alternatives like Signal and Telegram.