Hand Me the Paper: Tracking Changes in WhatsApp's Privacy Policy
A newsletter that chomps through PDFs and brings you the hottest content from the very niche world of tech-academia. Bite-sized.
I do a fair bit of reading. I read 52 books last year and am doing it again this year.
Starting this year, I also plan on reading more academic papers around tech and policy. Recording my readings and (sometimes, observations + annotated copies on this newsletter). Please do recommend papers and share your insights!
What I Read This Week:
Competition Commission of India’s take on the Updated Terms of Service and Privacy Policy for WhatsApp Users. [Link; Link with my scribbles]
What You Should Know:
WhatsApp says it is updating its terms and privacy policy to include information about:
How WhatsApp processes your data.
How businesses can use Facebook hosted services to store and manage their WhatsApp chats.
How WhatsApp partner’s with Facebook to offer integrations across the Facebook Company Products.
Few things to note here in the fine print.
These changes are not exactly new. What has changed is that there is no longer an option to opt-out.
The new policy also envisages data collection that seems to be expansive and disproportionate. It seems to want to capture the following details:
Transactions and payments data; data related to battery level, signal strength, app version, mobile operator, ISP, language and time zone, device operation information, service-related information, identifiers, and location information.
Also, the information categories outlined in the policy are too broad and unintelligible (according to CCI) and hide the actual data cost that a user incurs for using WhatsApp’s services.
What I Have Been Reading:
Music to My Ears:
This episode on Decoder with Senator Klobuchar. She is talking about her new book here and it is a quite comprehensive overview of American antitrust.