Responding to criticism WhatsApp plans one-time messages

Status: 14.06.2021 11:19 a.m.

The WhatsApp chat service is responding to the growing criticism of its market power. The fears of many users are to be allayed with new functions for the protection of privacy. The WhatsApp chat service wants to stick to the complete encryption and is promising new functions to protect privacy. The company, which belongs to the US group Facebook, is launching an advertising campaign on data protection in Germany and Great Britain today. The countries are among their most important markets. Management’s ideas include the ability to send messages that the recipient can only view once. That could be useful, for example, if you have to send family members a password, said WhatsApp boss Will Cathcart.

06/02/2021

Users also want to be able to set that chats disappear on their own after a certain period of time. “Overall, people don’t want their messages to last forever,” said Cathcart. “When we talk, we don’t have a recording device with us. So it’s strange that digital chat platforms save them forever.” The short promotional videos say that content sent on WhatsApp is basically only visible in clear text to the users involved thanks to the so-called end-to-end encryption.

Privacy activists alerted

WhatsApp has recently come under pressure for various reasons: On the one hand, the Announcement of the new usage rules caused criticism. Data protectionists warned that WhatsApp could increase data exchange with third-party companies and, above all, that data would also be shared with the parent company Facebook. WhatsApp rejected this and emphasized several times that the end-to-end encryption, with which the service itself does not have access to content, will not be weakened. WhatsApp boss Cathcart admitted errors in the announcement of the new rules. WhatsApp has not made it clear enough what you are doing and why: “We only became clearer when we saw the confusion. That is our responsibility,” said Cathcart.

05/29/2021

More than two billion users

In view of the criticism, many people have apparently looked around for alternatives to the chat service. The company currently has more than two billion users. It is not known how many actually migrated. A vast majority of users who have already been asked to agree to the new rules would have accepted them, said Cathcart. He did not give exact numbers. Originally, users who do not agree to the new rules should lose access to basic functions over time. Meanwhile they no longer face any consequences . Only the new functions for communication with companies will only be able to be used after approval of the update. According to WhatsApp, they were the main reason for changing the terms of use.

05/15/2021

Attempt a charm offensive

The company’s move could have another reason: The parent company Facebook is currently not only under close observation in the USA . Last year, federal authorities and states filed lawsuits against the Internet giant Google and the online platform Facebook. They are accused of anti-competitive practices. The market power of the large technology groups is now seen as a problem by many governments around the world. Consumer advocates also warn: “The market power of the Facebook group forces users to communicate via WhatsApp,” says Lina Ehrig, the head of the digital and media team at the Federation of German Consumer Organizations. “From the consumer’s point of view, it would be ideal if messenger services are legally and technically designed in such a way that sustainable competition and the innovative strength of the market are promoted.” In order to promote competition, so-called interoperability would be a possible means from the point of view of consumer advocates: As a survey by the consumer advice center shows, around a third of users would be willing to switch messengers if messages could be shared between different providers.

Encryption dispute

For its part, Cathcart is targeting governments. They tried to soften the encryption in chat services. “I hope that, over time, governments will see that the most important role they can play is to keep people safe.” This could be done, for example, by setting standards for companies.

02/09/2020

WhatsApp argues with governments that end-to-end encryption helps protect the security of citizens. Facebook is still sticking to the plan to bring full encryption to its second chat service Messenger as the next step, said Cathcart. In several countries, governments and authorities are attempting the Complete encryption in chat services like WhatsApp . In Germany, too, there is a draft law with which the protection of the constitution is supposed to enable source telecommunications monitoring in encrypted chat services as well.

Rejected by Facebook Jan Koum is of Jewish descent, born in 1976 into a poor family on the outskirts of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Koum’s father worked as a hospital and school construction manager, and his mother worked as a housewife. At the age of 16, Koum followed his mother and grandmother to the US to settle first, intending to settle down to welcome his father. They live off social welfare, from food stamps for those who cannot afford food. Koum’s mother takes care of the kids to earn extra money, while Koum cleans a grocery store. Koum still uses notebooks and pens brought from Ukraine because he lacks money to buy them. In 1997, when Koum was 21 years old, his father died in his hometown. Three years later, Koum’s mother also died in the US from cancer. In high school, Jan Koum didn’t have many friends and was seen as an outcast. He almost failed to graduate because of his lack of education. Jan Koum finds joy in his old computer. This time, Koum joins a hacker group called woowoo. With the experience gained from this hacker group, he applied for the exam and entered the University of San Jose. During his studies, he worked for Ernst and Young Auditing Company in the position of security vulnerability tester. In 1997, he ran into Yahoo employee Brian Acton. With the help of Acton, Koum got a job in cybersecurity six months later at Yahoo. Koum decided to leave school to focus on working for Yahoo. After 9 years at Yahoo, Koum rose to the position of infrastructure manager. In 2007, Koum and Acton both quit their jobs at Yahoo, spending time traveling South America in search of new inspirations. When they returned, the two applied to Facebook together, but were rejected. During his unemployment, Koum mulled over his next job. Buying an iPhone, Koum realized he could succeed with apps from the App Store. Koum came up with the idea to let people set up status updates on their phones. He said: “I am annoyed because I miss a lot of calls when I am at the gym. So I came up with the idea of ​​an app that lets friends know if the person on the other end of the line is ready to take a call, with a feature called “status”. We didn’t originally plan to start a company, we just wanted to make a product that people could use.” In February 2009, Koum and Acton co-founded WhatsApp, turning the product into a messaging app. At first, the cost to verify SMS for users cost about 500,000 USD/month, making Koum’s bank account almost exhausted. By December 2009, they updated a new version for WhatsApp on iPhone, making it possible for this application to send images, immediately the number of users increased. To ensure coverage, WhatsApp charged about $1 a month to use, which brought in about $5,000 in revenue in early 2010, enough to cover expenses later. By February 2013, when the number of WhatsApp users reached about 200 million and the number of employees was 50, Acton and Koum decided to organize a fundraiser and was invested 50 million USD by Sequoia Investment Fund, increasing the value of WhatsApp to 1 , 5 billion USD. The founding duo is very concerned about security for users. “We want to know as little of the user’s information as possible. We don’t run ads, so we don’t need personal data,” Koum said. WhatsApp quickly grew without any marketing or PR campaigns, especially in less developed countries where users rely heavily on SMS messages. Return to conquer the big man WhatsApp’s growth caught the attention of Facebook’s CEO. In 2012, Mark Zuckerberg phoned Koum to express his interest in WhatsApp. The two then kept in touch, often climbing mountains and chatting about the topic of world connection. In February 2014, Zuckerberg met Koum and offered to buy WhatsApp for $19 billion (including $4 billion in cash, the rest in Facebook stock). At the time Facebook acquired WhatsApp, the app had 450 million monthly active users. In 2019, this number has reached 1.5 billion. By February 2021, the application has surpassed 2 billion users in 180 countries, is the world’s most popular free messaging application over the internet today. However, the sale of WhatsApp by co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton is said to be a bad decision. The biggest split between WhatsApp and Facebook is the messaging app’s monetization policy. Koum and Acton have resisted the adoption of Facebook’s widespread advertising model, which uses personal data to allow marketers to show ads to specific sets of customers on the social network. Those disagreements have led to tensions with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg. Acton left WhatsApp in 2017, 8 months later Jan Koum also left. “I sold my company. For great personal gain I sold my users’ privacy to Facebook. I made a decision and compromised with that and I regret it” – Jan Koum shared with Forbes. After the two founders left, Facebook persisted with the policy given to WhatsApp. In early January 2021, WhatsApp made a controversial decision, when it changed its policy and terms of use, requiring WhatsApp users to agree to the sharing of their personal information with the parent company Facebook. and Facebook affiliated companies. According to WhatsApp, sharing information will help this application better understand users, in order to improve and enhance the quality of the service. However, this move of WhatsApp has angered many users and called for a boycott of the application, because they do not want to share their information with Facebook. Many WhatsApp users have switched to other free internet messaging apps and services, like Telegram and Signal. In 2014, Jan Koum entered Forbes’ list of the 400 richest Americans at number 62, with an estimated net worth of $7.5 billion. As of August 2020, his net worth is estimated at $10 billion.

Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging app icon. Photo: AFP/VNA MEITy’s new rules require major social media platforms like WhatsApp to “trace” the origin of specific messages sent on the messaging service. However, according to a WhatsApp spokesperson, asking messaging apps to trace chats is equivalent to asking WhatsApp to track every single message sent on the app. This would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally compromise user privacy. The spokesperson stressed that along with civil society and experts around the world, WhatsApp has always opposed requests to violate user privacy, but the application is owned by this social network Facebook. We will also continue to work with the Government of India to find practical solutions to keep everyone safe, including responding to valid legal requests for the information WhatsApp makes available. Earlier, the press reported that social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Google and Twitter could face legal action in India if they do not comply with a new regulation by the government to strengthen control. control of intermediary platforms, effective May 26. Failure to comply with the above provisions will result in the social media networks being stripped of their intermediary platform status and immunity and will face criminal action under Indian law. The above regulations also require social media companies to appoint a resident grievance officer, regulatory compliance officer and basic contact person, as well as to disclose detailed information about the company. details of these people on their website, along with physical contact addresses. The regulation also requires traceability of the originator of the message and includes a provision for voluntary verification as a way to establish user identity.

The Microsoft Office app for Android is now getting a dark mode soon. Photo: Google However, at the time of launch of the integrated Microsoft Office application, there was no dark mode for devices running the Android operating system. Many users have complained and asked Microsoft to add dark mode in Office applications. This feature will help them edit documents without the glare of the device’s blue light affecting their eyes. Recognizing user feedback and realizing the lack of updating dark mode for Android operating system, after more than 1 year of development this mode is now available to Android users in an update Upcoming. Android users with the latest version of Office apps will automatically adjust to dark mode if the device is already set to that option. In addition, users can also enable or disable dark mode by touching the profile icon on the home tab in the Office application. Then select the settings and choose light, dark or the system default to customize the theme. Microsoft product manager Sourab Nagpal said this is a feature that has been requested by many customers. This mode is well-received by many people because it provides comfort when reading documents and working on mobile devices. Microsoft says it will roll out dark mode for Office on Android in the coming weeks, so it may not be available to all users right away. Dark mode was updated by Micorosoft for iOS operating system last year along with the release of integrated Office. Devices like iPhone, iPad can read documents using Office applications comfortably just like Twitter, Facebook or WhatsApp experience with a dark color adaptive interface.

WhatsApp will block users who do not accept the new terms after May 15. Photo: WhatsApp After May 15, people who bypass WhatsApp’s new privacy rules will result in that account being restricted from accessing the app and eventually not being able to view the list of chats and calls. voice or video. After a few weeks, that user will be blocked from all resources including sending messages, but the account has not been removed from the system. Within 120 days of receiving the notification and the user stops logging in, that account will be deleted, all data will still be available if the user syncs with Messenger. WhatsApp updated its new policy earlier this year, all users were informed that the service would share data with other Facebook companies. Many users just want their data shared as little as possible, as some reports suggest that WhatsApp is collecting and sharing data related to location, IP address, phone model, operating system, etc. Your operating system, browser, mobile network, ISP, or even information about how you’re texting, calling, groups you’re in, status, profile picture, or the last time the user was online. To use the application, users must accept the new WhatsApp terms. However, the 27 European countries will not be affected by this new policy thanks to a privacy law known as GDPA and users will not have their personal data shared with another 3rd party.

Johannes Caspar, head of data protection in Hamburg, the city where Facebook is based in Germany, said: “The aforementioned ban is intended to protect the rights and freedoms of millions of users in Germany, who are have agreed to the terms of use (app). It is very important to prevent damage and disadvantages associated with such a black box process.” Germany also urged the European Union to apply a similar ban in 27 member states. WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $19 billion WhatsApp users around the world have been asked to agree to the new rules and conditions by May 15. Facebook, which has 60 million users in Germany, is encouraging its 1.5 billion users globally to update the WhatsApp app as soon as possible. WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $19 billion and now competes with other messaging rivals such as Signal and Telegram, both of which claim to have a higher level of personal data protection than WhatsApp. Since the beginning of this year, when running the WhatsApp software, a window will automatically pop up. The first page says that WhatsApp is updating its terms of use and data protection regulations, which states that WhatsApp cannot read or listen to chats because they are encrypted, WhatsApp is adjusting the chat business is simpler. The second page says that WhatsApp is updating its terms of use and data protection policy, asserting that WhatsApp does not change the privacy of private chats, but adds information on how to chat with businesses. business as desired and how the business can manage user chats. At the bottom of page 2 there is only the “agree” button and the user cannot do otherwise. If you do not agree to the new update, starting May 15, the use of WhatsApp may experience problems, such as not being able to receive or send messages, even if the account is not deleted or disabled. In short, WhatsApp requires users to agree to their new policy to be able to continue using the service after May 15, in which the update will allow more information to be shared from WhatsApp with Facebook. and other apps like Instagram and Messenger (such as contacts and profile data), except for encrypted chat content. Responding to the German ban, a WhatsApp spokesperson asserted that the ban was imposed without a legitimate basis and was based on a “fundamental misunderstanding” about the purpose and effect of the update. Therefore, the ban will not affect the continued rollout of the update.

Dressed in blue protective gear and wearing a visor under a bright yellow turban, Jitender Singh Shunty sprayed disinfectant on bodies at the Seemapuri crematorium in northeastern Delhi. He had to act fast because bodies were delivered faster than cremation. The families and friends of those who have died, and those who are trying to find hospital beds and oxygen tanks to save their loved ones, are losing patience. “We are doing all we can to help families have a decent funeral for their loved ones,” he said as he rushed into another ambulance that had just arrived with two bodies. Since the beginning of April, when India suffered a second wave of the outbreak, Jitender Singh Shunty and his 20 volunteers were shocked by the large number of bodies brought in. “Last year we cremated 967 bodies, this month alone we cremated 670 bodies,” he said. Worldometers chart of the high number of infections in India as of May 10. About 20km from Seemapuri, New Delhi, dozens of people were gathering outside Waseem’s gas station. They all have the same question: When will the new oxygen tanks arrive? Waseem is committed to updating information on WhatsApp as soon as it is available. “People are dying from lack of oxygen so I thought I had to do something to help them,” Waseem said. “Someone told me that I would get sick if I kept going out and meeting so many people with Covid-19 relatives. I’m really scared, but if I don’t help them, I’ll be haunted for life.” Waseem added. Not alone As India is trying to find a way to deal with the pandemic, young men and women from all over the country do not hesitate to volunteer to contribute to the fight. They set up apps to solicit support and help, distribute key supplies, and use social media to direct resources to those in need. With two-thirds of its 1.3 billion population under the age of 35, India is a country dominated by young people, but young people have never been called upon to shoulder such enormous responsibilities. Photo: Times of India Swadha Prasad is working with dozens of volunteers – all between the ages of 14 and 19 – as part of the youth-led UNCUT organization, building an online database to gather information. about available medical resources across the country. This is 24/7, with teens constantly working over the phone to verify supplies, update information in real time, and take calls from patient relatives. “Some of us work from midnight to morning, because the calls don’t stop at 3 a.m.,” CNA quoted Prasad, a 17-year-old schoolgirl who worked 14 hours a day from noon the day before to 1 a.m. next morning. It was a long and tiring shift, but this Mumbai resident was still very enthusiastic. “If I could help save a life, I would never say No.” And many Covid-19 victims have been saved. Prasad cites an example where her team was able to deliver oxygen in the middle of the night, saving the life of a young patient desperately waiting for help. “It’s not just about providing resources… sometimes people want to know they’re not alone,” she said. The graph of Worldometers shows the correlation between the number of new infections (yellow) and the number of new recoveries (blue) in India as of April 30. Technology limitations However, in many small Indian towns and villages, technological limitations exacerbate the situation. Urgent requests for resources and spare hospital beds have spurred a large number of Twitter users. 25-year-old software engineer Umang Galaiya solved this problem by writing an app that makes it easy for users to find what they need, and directs their search to verified resources. But even so, his application cannot help many people living outside of big cities because the number of internet users is very small. “If I look for resources in Jamnagar, I get nothing on Twitter,” reflected the young man. And according to this male engineer, the pandemic cannot be controlled without the government. Simple measures still save many lives. For example, authorities could create an online bed registry, which updates automatically in real time, to save distressed patients from running back and forth knocking on the door of each treatment facility. According to the update of statistics page Worldometers, as of noon on May 12, India has recorded more than 23.3 million people infected with Covid-19 and about 254,200 deaths.

Johannes Caspar, the head of the Hamburg municipal privacy agency, issued a three-month emergency ban. Accordingly, Facebook is prohibited from further data collection. He also asked the European Union data panel to take action and make a ruling in the bloc. WhatsApp’s new provision of data collection is invalid because they are not transparent, inconsistent, and too broad. In a statement on May 11, Mr. Caspar confirmed that the ban aimed at protecting the rights and freedoms of millions of WhatsApp users in Germany must agree to Facebook’s conditions. The German ban hits the heart of Facebook’s business model and advertising strategy. Previously, the country’s antitrust office also criticized the company for its habit of collecting data about users doing online and associated with Facebook profiles. The huge amount of information allows for targeted advertising and brings great revenue to social networks. However, WhatsApp called Mr Caspar’s statements “false” and said the ban could not prevent the new term from being deployed. In the announcement, WhatsApp said that the German authorities’ actions were based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the new term. Facebook faces a wave of protests around the globe because of WhatsApp’s new terms, requiring users to agree by May 15. Mr. Caspar is concerned that Facebook could wrongly handle the data and it is important to prevent data misuse, affecting the September election. Du Lam (According to Bloomberg)

Social network icons Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. Photo: Kyodo / VNA According to the Vietnam News Agency reporter in Germany, the Hamburg Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, where Facebook has a branch in Germany, has sent a ban to the social network that owns the popular messaging service WhatsApp. From the beginning of this year, when running the WhatsApp software, a window will automatically pop up. The first page states that WhatsApp is updating its terms of use and data protection regulations, in which the first statement: WhatsApp cannot read or listen to chats because they are encrypted, and second: WhatsApp are making adjustments to make it simpler to chat with businesses. Next, the second page said that WhatsApp is updating its terms of use and data protection regulations, which confirmed that WhatsApp does not change privacy in private chat, but added information on how to get it. chat with the business as desired and how the business can manage user chat sections. Especially at the bottom of page 2 there is only the “agree” button and the user cannot do otherwise. If you do not agree with the new update, starting May 15, using WhatsApp may experience problems, such as being unable to receive or send messages, even if the account is not deleted or disabled. In short, WhatsApp requires users to agree to their new policy in order to continue using the service after May 15, in which an update will allow more information from WhatsApp to be shared with Facebook. and other apps like Instagram and Messenger (such as contacts and profile data), except for encrypted chat content. According to a statement by the Hamburg’s Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, the terms of the above agreement will be invalidated in Germany for three months, and the office will refer the case to the European Data Protection Authority, The independent EU agency enforces the rules across the bloc. According to Hamburg State Data Protection Commissioner Johannes Caspar, Facebook’s data protection breaches in the past as well as the September general elections in Germany indicate the risk of “mass building user profiles”. can be taken advantage of. He emphasized the ruling was intended to protect the rights and freedoms of millions of users across Germany. The official is concerned not only about privacy, but that records could be used to “influence voter choices and manipulate democratic decisions”. Currently in Germany there are about 60 million WhatsApp users, the most popular chat application currently in the country. However, in response to the ban, a WhatsApp spokesperson confirmed that the ban was issued without a legitimate basis and is based on a “basic misunderstanding” of the purpose and effect of the update. Therefore, a ban will not affect further rollout of the update.

iOS 15 will customize how you receive and process notifications based on your “state” (drive, work, sleep …). Status will be adjusted via the lock screen menu (also upgraded) or the Control Center. iOS 15 will allow to receive or process notifications depending on the user’s status. Photo: 9to5mac. Depending on which status is turned on, your phone rings or silences when notifications arrive. User can allow iPhone to automatically reply to messages when switched to respective status. According to the Bloomberg These features are quite similar to sleep mode or do not disturb, but iOS 15 will allow more active status adjustments, not limited to available modes. Apple is also said to be revamping the iMessage app to function as a social network, competing with Facebook’s WhatsApp. However, the plan is in the early stages, it is unlikely to be introduced in the first iOS 15 release. For iPad, the device’s home screen will be first changed since the product launches in 2010. Like iOS 14 on the iPhone, Apple will allow iPad users to place widgets anywhere on the screen. key to update information. A desktop page on an iPad can contain entire widgets instead of app icons as before. IPad main screen will have a big change when updating iPadOS 15. Photo: 9to5mac. New privacy protections are coming to iOS 15 as well, one of which is a list of apps that are silently collecting data. This feature will limit the application’s sneaky collection of location, phone number without through IDFA (Ad Identifier). Apple is expected to launch iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 (codename Sky) at the developer conference (WWDC 2021) held online on June 7. The beta version of iOS 15 will be released to developers, before the mass update for users in the fall. Since WWDC is still a few weeks away, rumors suggest that Apple may still delay some features for later updates. In addition to iOS 15, Apple will also introduce a slight upgrade to macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. Apple launches new purple iPhone and improved iPad Pro M1 During the Spring Loaded event taking place at 0:00 on April 21 (Vietnam time), Apple introduced a series of products including iPhone 12 purple version, new design iMac, AirTag card, iPad Pro M1.

WhatsApp is testing a Beta feature to speed up the playback of voice messages After a short activation, WhatsApp released a new version of Android beta 2.21.9.5 to disable this feature. This is arguably another surprise, because WhatsApp typically tests features for a few months before rolling out to public beta testers. This could be a buggy update from WhatsApp and has been quickly fixed. The interface for this version of WhatsApp has also been changed to better accommodate the new features. An icon appears right next to the voice message to perform accelerated operations that the user wants to hear again. In addition to playback acceleration, another feature also tested by WhatsApp is the ability to delete or make changes to a chat on just one active device without affecting any linked devices other. That is, changes or deletion of any chats through one handset will not be deleted from other linked devices. This is quite confusing because often performing a delete or change operation means that the content the user will not want to save on any device. If this feature is kept by WhatsApp, users will have to delete the chats multiple times on multiple devices. This feature is in line with what WhatsApp introduced previously, which is that each account can be importing up to 4 devices at the same time. However, the log out of all these devices is said to be in development, users still have to go to each device to remove the WhatsApp account. The new features that WhatsApp has introduced well for users to try out may see that it may be coming to many people soon.

Many security experts warned WhatsApp users not to click on the pink settings link for WhatsApp called WhatsappPink. Many security experts including Mr. Rajesh Rajaharia have voiced a warning about a virus hidden in a fake pink update link for WhatsApp called WhatsappPink. Once a user clicks on the WhatsappPink link, the virus will help hackers break in, take all access to WhatsApp in particular as well as their phones in general. The ultimate goal of a hacker is to steal victims’ personal information and bank passwords. According to Mr. Rajaharia, if a user has clicked on the fake pink update link for WhatsApp and lost access to their account or suspected something unusual happened to their account, they should immediately take action. like uninstall WhatsappPink immediately; uninstall all WhatsApp web services; clear browser cache from settings; double-check access to all applications on your phone; If you suspect losing access to any application try to get it back immediately. Warning about WhatsappPink by security expert Rajesh Rajaharia Experts also warn users to follow the basics and never install other mobile apps than those available on the official Google or Apple app store. For its part, WhatsApp has also warned users through media reports that: “Anyone can receive an unusual or suspicious message through any service, including email, private messages, and so on. text the phone and we strongly encourage everyone to be cautious before answering or participating. WhatsApp also suggests users send them a report about malicious links similar to WhatsappPink if they received it.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s company believes that the combination of audio formats, as well as the combination of text, sound and images, will create many magical features that meet the expectations of users. Facebook’s adjustment of the feature stems from actual user tastes as more and more people choose to use voice, from audio calls on social networks to leaving voice messages on WhatsApp’s app. Messenger. Currently, Facebook is building new sound generators “like having a recording studio in the user’s pocket.” These tools will let people create short recordings, such as jokes. There are more than 170 million people connected to Facebook pages using podcasts, and about 35 million users are members of podcast fan groups. However, at the moment, listening to audio on podcasts forces users to leave the social network. With Facebook’s improved feature, in the near future, users will be able to listen to podcasts directly on the app, using both at the same time. according to TechCrunch