What does the new WhatsApp banner mean over your chats?
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From March 15, the new WhatsApp Terms of Use will come into force – the company will indicate this with a banner. This will soon appear in the chat overview.
In early January, Messenger WhatsApp came under fire because it wanted to force users to accept new terms of use. The content of these provisions was so vaguely worded that many misunderstood them as a free ticket for data transfer to the parent company Facebook. Since then, alternative messengers such as Signal and Telegram have seen rapidly increasing download numbers. To get the situation under control, WhatsApp rowed back. The new regulations will come into force on March 15th – instead of February 8th as originally planned.
Also read: WhatsApp alternatives: secure messengers for iOS, Android, PC and Mac
Nothing changes in normal chat use
The messenger indicates the new appointment with a banner that appears over the WhatsApp chats. There it says that WhatsApp’s terms of use and data protection provisions will be adapted. The changes can be checked in detail with one click.
In fact, nothing changes at all with normal messenger use. WhatsApp has been sharing data with Facebook since 2016. Many may not have been aware of this, but TECHNOLOGY BUTTON, among others, has reported extensively on it . In the European Union, data transfer is also more strict than anywhere else. For EU residents, everything stays the same.
The new WhatsApp Terms of Use regulate how users communicate with companies via Messenger. Chats are usually end-to-end encrypted. This means that only you and that across from you can read the news. Even if the WhatsApp server were to be hacked, nobody would be able to see the content of chats. However, this protection does not exist in chats with companies. The content of these messages is not encrypted. It can thus be used for targeted advertising for Facebook and stored on the company’s servers.
Banner leads to new WhatsApp terms of use
After WhatsApp already forced these changes on its users as a status message , a banner should now also appear over the chats. If you tap on it, a page will appear explaining the changes .
On the side, WhatsApp explicitly states that communicating with companies is completely optional. Users have control over whether they want to contact companies via WhatsApp. You can block contacts and delete them from your list at any time. Chats with companies are also explicitly marked as such in order not to confuse them with normal chats.
WhatsApp also tries to confirm that chats between users are still end-to-end encrypted. Neither WhatsApp nor Facebook would therefore have access to the content of messages.
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