On Friday, a PTI report revealed crucial information for all WhatsApp users in India. It stated that WhatsApp has “scraped” the new privacy policy accepting deadline of May 15, 2021. Well, now that the official WhatsApp statement is here, we can say that accepting of the new privacy policy has not been scrapped entirely. Eventually, you will need to accept the new terms of services or chose to lose most functionalities of the app.
The Facebook owned messaging platform suggests that it won’t delete accounts that don’t accept new privacy policy but will make it as useless as possible. Yes, that’s right. Let’s explain what that really means for users.
Nothing really changes for people who accept the new privacy policy but for users who don’t, a lot does. WhatsApp clarifies that it will continue to show the notification to accept new terms, just as it has been showing till now. However, after a period of several weeks, not specified how many, users will see a persistent reminder.
The company confirms that once users begin seeing a persistent reminder, the WhatsApp app will switch to a limited functionality mode. What does that mean now?
In the limited functionality mode, users will not be able to access their chat list. WhatsApp says that if they receive a chat, they will be able to open it through their notifications and also respond to them. In this mode, users will also be able to respond to incoming audio and video calls. Not sure if WhatsApp will allow these users to make calls to send messages.
The messaging platform further states that a few weeks later, these users will stop receiving all calls and messages. This clearly means that, anyone who fails to accept the new terms and services will eventually lose access most of the key functionalities. In other words, WhatsApp will become as useless as policy.
So, the only option WhatsApp users eventually have, is to accept the terms or switch to an alternative app such as say, Signal or Telegram.
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