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

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.