“Customer is King”, is a well-known statement you may have heard repeatedly.. Today, we have seen it practically. A company like Facebook had bowed down to customers. Facebook-owned WhatsApp has delayed its controversial new policy implementation after users’ outrage.
WhatsApp’s New Policy Rollout Delay
Through its official blog post, WhatsApp confirmed that it will delay the new policy at least for 3 months. Instead of 8 February, now the company is planning to roll out the new policy features on 15 May 2021. Instant messaging leader WhatsApp is under pressure because of the negative wave against the app.
The company is blaming its rivals for spreading misinformation about the new terms and conditions. WhatsApp plans to clear users’ doubts first.
In the blog post, WhatsApp said that the privacy policy is not changing at all. We are planning to help users with businesses. WhatsApp further stated that the company will definitely bring business support related policies even if users disagree.
Recently, WhatsApp printed a full-page new policy clarification advertisement in so many print media portals. Through its different social media handles as well, the company is putting extra efforts to clear the doubts.
In a newspaper advertisement, WhatsApp said, “to make your messages private, we have an end to end encryption. Neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see your private messages. No one will hear your personal calls except the receiver. All user documents, messages, voice messages, photos, videos you send to your friends, family, and colleagues are well protected through encryption algorithms. It stays between sender and receiver.”
As per the latest news, WhatsApp will only share the data of WhatsApp Business Accounts with Facebook and its allies.
Why WhatsApp Delayed New Policy Rollout?
A few days back, WhatsApp forwarded a notification to more than 2 billion users who are on its platform. As per the notification, If users don’t accept the new policies then after 8 February, their accounts will be disabled.
It created a negative image of WhatsApp. There are different reasons that forced WhatsApp to delay the new policy implementation.
A dramatic downfall in the WhatsApp user base forced them to put new policy on hold. As per the reports, within four days of rolling out the new policy notification, WhatsApp saw a 35% decline in its new downloads.
Another major reason is the popularity of its rivals. Telegram and Signal grabbed the opportunity very well. The telegram reached a 500 million user base, whereas Signal could not provide the initial user authentication code because of the exponential surge in the traffic.
The signal is continuously adding IT resources to handle the traffic, but still, from yesterday, Signal group messaging services are down.
Users are receiving “Bad Encrypted Message” instead of the real message over the Signal app. Some users are complaining about the repeated delivery of the “Bad Encrypted Message” text. These technical issues are happening because of the enormous traffic over the Signal platform
Recently, Facebook is worldwide criticised for its current operations and activities. Business tycoons like Elon Musk, Apple CEO are totally against Facebook. Other than the WhatsApp controversy, Elon Musk blamed Facebook for the recent Capitol riots. Apple also changed its policies to hurt the business operations of Facebook. So through the current WhatsApp new policy delay, they want to buy more time to clarify things.
