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Was it the data that was merged with WhatsApp, or was it the infrastructure? AFAICT, FB can't connect what I said on whatsapp to what I say on Messenger becaus

Was it the data that was merged with WhatsApp, or was it the infrastructure? AFAICT, FB can't connect what I said on whatsapp to what I say on Messenger because everything is e2e encrypted. They have metadata (would need it to route the messages, and for providing the service). What am I missing?

vel0city 7y ago
Don't brush off metadata as useless information. They know who you talk to when you send these WhatsApp messages. They know how often you talk to these people. They know when you talk to these people. From this information they are more able to glean who are the important people in your life, what kind of relationship you have,and can then weight these profiles better. Only talk to this person sporadically during normal business hours? Good chance this person is purely a work contact. Routinely send messages after work? Probably a friend. Send lots of large payload messages late at night to a certain someone? Naughty you ;) Of course this is endemic to any third party you trust buffering and delivering these communications, this is not particular to Facebook. However, Facebook is explicitly using this information, while others explicitly say they don't.
WA 7y ago
Mainly, they said they would not connect your phone number to your FB account, but then the did. Furthermore, metadata is super critical already. Don’t forget that WhatsApp has your location data as well (if you enable it, what most people probably do to share their location with friends occasionally). Although I have no proof, knowing FB, I bet they extract meta data from all of your photos and send them back. I mean, why not? Maybe not all the time, or maybe not in every version, but given FB‘s track history of giving zero fucks and trying everything under the sun to gather more data, it wouldn’t surprise me (same is obviously true for Instagram). I try to use WhatsApp less and less and I removed all permissions except contacts. If I want to send a photo, I use the Share capability of iOS and select from Photos to share with WhatsApp. The insane part is: this behavior is not doable in Android. You either grant photo access or you can’t send anything.
- lucasverra 7y ago
  > If I want to send a photo, I use the Share capability of iOS and select from Photos to share with WhatsApp is FB Inc separated from photo metadata that way ?
  - WA 7y ago
    From access to your photo library – yes, I'd think so. I don't know if they extract meta data from the photo you're about to send via WhatsApp. But this is a different thing than accessing meta data of thousands of photos.

vel0city 7y ago

Don't brush off metadata as useless information. They know who you talk to when you send these WhatsApp messages. They know how often you talk to these people. They know when you talk to these people. From this information they are more able to glean who are the important people in your life, what kind of relationship you have,and can then weight these profiles better. Only talk to this person sporadically during normal business hours? Good chance this person is purely a work contact. Routinely send messages after work? Probably a friend. Send lots of large payload messages late at night to a certain someone? Naughty you ;) Of course this is endemic to any third party you trust buffering and delivering these communications, this is not particular to Facebook. However, Facebook is explicitly using this information, while others explicitly say they don't.

WA 7y ago

Mainly, they said they would not connect your phone number to your FB account, but then the did. Furthermore, metadata is super critical already. Don’t forget that WhatsApp has your location data as well (if you enable it, what most people probably do to share their location with friends occasionally). Although I have no proof, knowing FB, I bet they extract meta data from all of your photos and send them back. I mean, why not? Maybe not all the time, or maybe not in every version, but given FB‘s track history of giving zero fucks and trying everything under the sun to gather more data, it wouldn’t surprise me (same is obviously true for Instagram). I try to use WhatsApp less and less and I removed all permissions except contacts. If I want to send a photo, I use the Share capability of iOS and select from Photos to share with WhatsApp. The insane part is: this behavior is not doable in Android. You either grant photo access or you can’t send anything.

lucasverra 7y ago
> If I want to send a photo, I use the Share capability of iOS and select from Photos to share with WhatsApp is FB Inc separated from photo metadata that way ?
- WA 7y ago
  From access to your photo library – yes, I'd think so. I don't know if they extract meta data from the photo you're about to send via WhatsApp. But this is a different thing than accessing meta data of thousands of photos.