Earlier this month, WhatsApp announced some changes that they will be making to their privacy policy. These changes basically state that data from WhatsApp will be shared with Facebook, and it didn’t really give users a choice – either they accepted it or they would need to find a new messaging platform.
Now according to new reports, it seems that the company’s decision to make changes to their privacy policy could have cost them millions of users in the process. Data from App Annie has revealed that WhatsApp, which used to be eighth place as the most downloaded app in the UK, fall to 23rd place.
Its competitors, such as Telegram and Signal, actually benefited from this. For example, Signal which wasn’t in the top 1000 apps in the UK jumped to the number one spot over the course of a few days. Telegram had also previously announced that they managed to add 25 million new users in a 72 hour period.
WhatsApp has since announced that they will be putting a pause on the changes as they are hoping that this will give them more time to convince users that these changes, at least for the most part, won’t affect them. The company had previously stated that the data sharing will be mostly between business accounts, and they also reassured users that they cannot read their messages nor have access to their phone logs.
Filed in . Read more about Apps, Privacy, Signal, Telegram and Whatsapp. Source: theguardian