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How WhatsApp works with other Facebook products

329 points by woliveirajr 6y ago

rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
Except for social network effects (larger user base), what are WhatsApp's advantages vs Signal?
- uppsalax 6y ago
  There was the same debate over Whatsapp vs Telegram clash. The fact here is that network effects play a big role in these kind of business models. Moreover think about the fact that whatsapp was one of the first entrants, and was bought by Mark Zuckerberg. Brand is another big player when we consider and analyse that competitive landscape... Security is one of the most important factors nowadays, especially if we consider the data breaches number, that is increasing dramatically (600% since covid-19 outbreak). But are like p2p models, if there aren't many people to create traffic, it isn't worth it (for the moment at least). And in case of messaging apps these people must be your friends! (Word-of-mouth) Do not misunderstand me, I am 100% for security and privacy, but here users are driven by other factors unfortunately.
- Closi 6y ago
  In the UK I don't know a person without WhatsApp, pretty much everyone uses it. I don't know a single person who has signal. If I say to a friend "I'll message you on WhatsApp" they will be like "ok great". If I say to a friend "I'll message you on Signal" they will be like "What is that? Oh I have to download something? Don't you have WhatsApp? Screw it just send me a text." So you can't really say "Apart from larger user base why do people use it?". It's like saying "Apart from an inability to breathe, why don't people live underwater?"
  - tommyage 6y ago
    I just informed all my important contacts about the deletion of my whats app account per this message and told them my substitution. All people who are important to me migrated. Some refused for a long time for no reason, but in the end installed a separate app alongside WA. But I get your position: Judging by the amount of unfair usability and amount of third parties involved in any co.uk-domain, it appears to me that the common folk gives a shit about it over there. However, I wont get any site a visit who does the above. There are alternatives to gain information.
  - type0 6y ago
    > It's like saying "Apart from an inability to breathe, why don't people live underwater?" Because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_habitat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_habitat
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  In most markets, almost everyone has a WhatsApp account. I don’t have a Signal account and nobody ever asked for it.
- pixiemagic 6y ago
  Well, that is surely by far the main reason anyone uses any messaging app. The majority of people don't care about features or even privacy, and use the app that everyone else is on. In Europe/the UK at least, that seems to be WhatsApp. Outside of techie people, if you ask someone to use something like Signal you'll be met with "why? I already have WhatsApp". "larger user base" is an understatement; the difference is several orders of magnitude. (on a personal level, I don't enjoy using WA, but it's necessary here unless you only communicate within a bubble of tech workers)
- outime 6y ago
  The thing with WhatsApp is that besides the largest user base (most important reason IMHO) it just works very well. I don’t know about Signal as I’ve briefly used it but why would anyone switch apart from us? You can’t just convince the majority of the users with privacy arguments or even hypothetical extra features from Signal. Only if WhatsApp would introduce something really annoying (huge ads, fees, constant technical issues) people would start to move. But even Telegram which is so much better IMHO (albeit privacy by default isn’t better) will hardly be #1 ever if nothing of the above happens.
  - jjbinx007 6y ago
    I believe WhatsApp used to charge a small fee a few years back.
    - goatinaboat 6y ago
      They charged $1/year “on paper” but never actually collected it. That would have been plenty of revenue for any normal people but they got greedy and realised their user’s private data was worth much much more.
      - meibo 6y ago
        Mind that this was before the Facebook buy-out/the original creators leaving, so I assume strategic masterminds at FB reversed that pretty quickly.
      - robertlagrant 6y ago
        I'm curious to know if when I make some voice/video calls, and send and receive some data and push notifications, how far that dollar would really go.
        Nextgrid 6y ago
        At scale, that dollar will go very far. Unmetered bandwidth is cheap if you look beyond the cloud providers and the majority of calls can be established directly (in fact WhatsApp does use UPnP to map ports presumably for direct connections) so you'd only ever use that bandwidth for texts/transient media uploads and the small percentage of calls that can't be established directly and need to be proxied through. WhatsApp doesn't store media long-term so storage requirements are also small.
- nvr219 6y ago
  The biggest reason is larger user base. But here are two things I do in WhatsApp that I can't do in Signal: - Share live location. If I need to meet up with somebody, or let someone know how far away I am and when I'm arriving, I use share live location. "Share for 1 hour." In Signal you can share your location at a moment in time but it doesn't update. - Broadcast messages ("mass text" basically). In WhatsApp I can send a message to a list of people without the people on the list seeing each other (to them it looks like I messaged them 1:1). In Signal I would have to use a group and all the members would see each other.
  - cja 6y ago
    Almost - they get the little broadcast icon under the message
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > In WhatsApp I can send a message to a list of people without the people on the list seeing each other What's the use case for this? "Happy New Year!"?
    - nvr219 6y ago
      Here are a few: 1. I'm on a few "mailing lists" that are delivered via WhatsApp, like "weekly one-minute sermon" type stuff. 2. I have a friends that are all into the same kind of music but don't know each other. I use broadcast to send them links to bandcamp, spotify, etc. 3. I have a broadcast list for my local friends. If I want to get rid of something or looking for something ("hey I'm getting rid of this, do you want it" [photo]) I use that list.
    - lxgr 6y ago
      Yes, or sharing a joke, a recipe, a holiday photo etc. with friends and family that might not know each other. I don't use it often, but it's very convenient.
  - octorian 6y ago
    > Share live location This can be an extremely useful feature at times, and is also E2E encrypted with a similar model to group chats (but modified to allow for lossy delivery). > Broadcast messages This is one of those interesting features that many people are completely oblivious to, don't use, and don't understand why anyone needs. Meanwhile, many other people use it constantly and simply can't live without it.
- arximboldi 6y ago
  As someone that does not have a smartphone, WhatsApp and Signal are really annoying because they are the two apps that can not be used without one (even though they have desktop apps). Telegram and FB Messenger and Hangouts at least can, but here in Europe WhatsApp is the default for everything and there are things for which it is becoming almost completely necessary. But I simply find the whole chat ecosystem so depressing. A few years ago at least I could chat with Google Talk people via Jabber. It is really absurd that instant messaging is not federated like email. Of course there is one explanation: while Email was invented in the 70s at research institutions with goals beyond profit, IM already started in the 90s with companies trying to capitalize their user-base with vendor lock-in... (ICQ, MSN, etc.). Sad, sad, sad.
  - Timpy 6y ago
    I'm stepping out of my domain knowledge on this one to start a discussion, I hope to have my points corrected where I'm wrong. Another note, I'm not advocating for FB's methods I'm strictly interested in some cryptography aspects. As I understand it, in order to have real end-to-end encryption (the real stuff, not some marketing term) each device has to generate a long set of keys and with each message sent, they cycle through to the next key. If WhatsApp is doing what it reports it's doing and it actually is end-to-end encrypted then the web application needs to use your phone because it needs that set of keys. I'm not sure if it specifically sends through your phone or if it sends via the webapp, but you have to use the keys in the correct order or the device you're contacting won't be able to decrypt the next message.
    - rkangel 6y ago
      Yes, WhatsApp is doing encryption that is E2E between two devices. That's a good security model. There's no particular reason that that has to be two phones though - could be desktop, wifi tablet etc.. That limitation is a result of a 'product' decision where your identity on WhatsApp is a mobile phone number. That decision was a big part of what allowed WhatsApp to scale quickly (people didn't need to create an account, just install the app and start messaging people whose numbers they had).
- fsflover 6y ago
  Why would you replace one centralized system for another? Every such system gets in trouble once it's too big (in terms of money and politically). Choose Matrix instead.
- corobo 6y ago
  You can't exclude the one defining reason haha. That's all there is, other people use it.
- nelsonenzo 6y ago
  Signal unfortunately has limited media support. Otherwise I would love to have my wife on it.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - drcongo 6y ago
    I've found Signal's media support to be decent (although it absolutely mangles video). What are you missing?
    - nelsonenzo 6y ago
      multi-photo attachments and video.
- rattray 6y ago
  In the past I found signal to be less slick and reliable than whatsapp, but hopefully that's no longer true
- simias 6y ago
  Signal UI is mediocre. I want it to succeed, but both WhatsApp and Telegram are simply a lot more convenient to use. WA and Telegram have a pure web client when you want to quickly have access to your chats without installing anything. If you decide to install the standalone clients you'll find that Telegram is vastly ahead of Signal. You can change the spellchecking language and add dictionaries, you have a lot more options for formatting messages (code blocks etc...), it deals better with multimedia content like inline audio, it's a lot faster and less resource-hungry. The only reason I still bother with Signal is because I know that, in theory, from a security perspective it's the better of the three. In practice it's by far the worst though.
  - drcongo 6y ago
    This post sums up my feelings exactly. Signal is objectively ugly and has quite a lot of display bugs that there's really no excuse for in a messaging app. Telegram is (subjectively) beautiful - they really nailed the UI - and is by far the nicest to use of the three. WhatsApp is both hideous and horrible to use. I wish I could drag people away from it, but even having had my WhatsApp status set to "WhatsApp is spyware, message me on Telegram" for the past 3 years, not a single person has switched.
    - screamingninja 6y ago
      > Signal is objectively ugly That's a weird thing to say. How is anything objectively ugly? It is a matter of opinion after all.
      - drcongo 6y ago
        You're right, I've come back 5 days later to correct myself. I've been using Signal a lot more in the last week and actually nearly all the things that I would say justified the use of the word "objectively" are now fixed. They were all bugs, rather than design choices - things like inconsistent padding, and a tiny unpadded input window when typing long messages. It's actually pretty nice now.
- Atariman 6y ago
  I would recommend Threema. It's been recently open-sourced and has the most secure encryption mechanism. https://threema.ch/en/open-source https://threema.ch/en/open-source
  - drcongo 6y ago
    I had Threema installed but not set up so your comment prompted me to set it up and I don't think they could have come up with a more confusing setup if they'd tried. First screen asked me to wiggle my finger on the screen without offering any explanation. Second screen gave me a random string and told me that's my ID. Third screen asked me to add a password for Threema Safe, whatever that is. I then couldn't leave that screen at all because the on-screen keyboard covered over the next button, and the one big green button that was visible did nothing. Eventually I accidentally swiped and got to another screen that asked me what Threema Safe I wanted to use, like I have any idea what a Threema Safe is. After that it asked me to put in a username, even though I already have a Threema ID from several screens ago. Then it asked for my phone number. So now it has a Threema ID, a phone number and a username and I have to guess which of those is useful. Then it asked me to sync my contacts, I didn't do that. Finally, I got to a screen with a QR code, my nickname, my Threema ID, something asking me to Enter Code for Linked Number, and a Key Fingerprint. This thing bears only a passing resemblance to a messaging app. Most of that setup I kind of understand, but then I'm the sort of person who reads HN. There is not a hope in hell of getting even 1% of the people I know to even make it through the setup process though. Once inside, I apparently have one contact called ECHOECHO who, when I message them, repeat the message back to me. The messaging UI is slightly nicer than Signal and WhatsApp's though, but not as nice as Telegram's.
    - Atariman 6y ago
      You're right, the UI maybe could have been a bit more intuitive. However, the setup is far from rocket science and could easily be improved by the developers. And yeah, it may only have 1% of users but thats's only because 95% have WA... It's a choice about freedom and you have to start somewhere. I converted more than 50% of my contacts to Threema - the rest has expensive phones but obviously no money to protect their privacy.
- LUmBULtERA 6y ago
  I was able to get most of my family and friends I regularly message onto Signal. It has worked great for us. But then -- my circles are small and few, so it wasn't too hard. I saw no advantage of WhatsApp after getting them to install Signal.
- dearjames 6y ago
  Well, in Zimbabwe because of the large user base WhatsApp got when it initially arrived (due to reduced charges, SMSs where about 15cents a pop then) around 2011-2012, the ISPs have effectively made it the only way to communicate economically by providing a "bundle". Basically they offer you a drastically reduced price to only access WhatsApp, mostly text message without media at that. Compared to the data plan that can access the whole internet it is very very cheap to use just WhatsApp. The cheapest WhatsApp bundle on the most popular network (Econet) is currently at around 51cents to text the whole week (65MB of data) vs the $13 for 8gigs. Granted the 8gigs is for a month but $13 is a big amount in this part of the world, and with regular data there's the aspect of discipline to not use all that data on youtube and other data hungry apps/websites.
  - tilolebo 6y ago
    How does this technically work? Does Econet use a dns-based filter?
- boltzmann_ 6y ago
  > except for social network effects In the social networks app world this is all that matters
kace91 6y ago
I already knew this but it's still fucked. In my country WhatsApp is used for everything from talking to friends through setting up a date with your hairdresser to group activities like school parents groups. There is an expectation that the information you share by someone having your number is very limited - the person that has your number can text you, yes, but they can't know about you, and you can limit the small amount of info you let through like your profile picture or your online state using privacy controls. This expectation is completely removed when adding somebody's number to your contact list is enough for Facebook to do its magic and reveal the owner in your Facebook friends suggestions. I've had it happen dozens of times, I start texting a tinder match and suddenly her profile is there in my suggestions. It's common for it to misfire and I end up being suggested the personal account of the owner of a business I bought something for. They don't even need to text you, you add the number to your phone's contact list and it's there. Facebook needs to be broken apart, and we need a law that the data you share with an app can't be used for others period, even more so if they were separate businesses when you started using the service, and a change of policies is not enough - you might already be locked in.
- raziel2p 6y ago
  This has never happened to me, probably because I don't install the Facebook app and don't give Messenger Lite access to my contacts. If Facebook and Whatsapp were sharing phone numbers or metadata behind the scenes I would expect to see a lot of suggestions when I log in to the Facebook website, but I don't. Still agree with your opinion, though. Also, I find it annoying that you can't message someone on WhatsApp without adding them to contacts.
  - csunbird 6y ago
    But your contacts do install the apps and Facebook can now match you.
  - osobo 6y ago
    They don't as much share info as live off the same ecosystem in your phone. Regular users, who don't actively block their FB apps from accessing their phones in depth, will store Whatsapp contacts on their phones, which in turn are read by the FB and/or Messenger app. Since neither knows the context, it just assumes its a new contact and show you info accordingly.
hadrien01 6y ago
> When Facebook notified the acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014, it informed the Commission that it would be unable to establish reliable automated matching between Facebook users' accounts and WhatsApp users' accounts. It stated this both in the notification form and in a reply to a request of information from the Commission. However, in August 2016, WhatsApp announced updates to its terms of service and privacy policy, including the possibility of linking WhatsApp users' phone numbers with Facebook users' identities. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_17_1369 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_17_...
- simias 6y ago
  I may be misunderstanding this legalese vocabulary but doesn't "unable" mean "technically incapable"? As in, there's no technical way of matching users? Because if so, man, whoever wrote this must have laughed a lot when they wrote it. You may not be able to match 100% of users of course, but with the amount of personal data FB has access to it should be able to match a good chunk of the userbase with a high degree of confidence if it wanted to.
  - magicalhippo 6y ago
    > doesn't "unable" mean "technically incapable"? Unable is followed by "to establish reliable automated matching". I think the key words here are "reliable" and "automated". There's a ton of wiggle room in those words.
  - gabaix 6y ago
    In the 2014 merger procedure [1] Facebook described it as 'very hard', and 'against its own interest'. > "The Notifying Party submitted that integration between WhatsApp and Facebook would pose significant technical difficulties. Notably, integration of WhatsApp's and Facebook's networks would require matching WhatsApp users' profiles with their profiles on Facebook (or vice versa). This would be complicated without the users' involvement since Facebook and WhatsApp use different unique user identifiers: Facebook ID and mobile phone number, respectively. Consequently, Facebook would be unable to automatically and reliably associate a Facebook ID with a valid phone number used by a user on WhatsApp. Matching of WhatsApp profiles with Facebook profiles would most likely have to be done manually by users, which in the Notifying Party's view is likely to result in a significant backlash from both users of Facebook and WhatsApp who do not want to match their accounts. Finally, the Notifying Party stated that, beyond the difficulties in matching user IDs, significant engineering hurdles would have to be overcome to enable cross-platform communications, reflecting the fundamentally different architecture of Facebook and WhatsApp (including the former being cloud-based, the latter not)." It seems the EU commission interpreted the statement as 'not possible'. Facebook played them. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/decisions/m7217_20141003_20310_3962132_EN.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/decisions/m72...
neals 6y ago
What annoys me to no end is that I was Whatsapping with a local restaurant for food delivery during the lockdown and two days later, the owner pops up in my Facebook "suggested friends" list.
- nashashmi 6y ago
  Could be that the person you contacted has their information totally open to FB
  - 2sk21 6y ago
    This sounds right. WhatsApp and Facebook both have access to contacts so information flows between them through this channel
- jtsiskin 6y ago
  I think the most likely explanation for this is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
  - neals 6y ago
    Or is it your confirmation bias where you expect people to distrust Facebook for the wrong reasons so that you can post that link? Because funnily enough, I didn't place blame in my comment. I just pointed out my 'annoyance'. You, on the other hand, concluded something from that. Ironically.
    - jtsiskin 6y ago
      What other reason for ‘annoyance’ could you have, other than assuming that the WhatsApp messages lead to the suggested friend, and thus you were annoyed that the data was (supposedly) shared? If you just also just thought it was a coincidence, what would you be annoyed about?
xfz 6y ago
I've been resisting the Facebook (including WhatsApp) monopoly but at personal cost so I'm starting to capitulate. The network effect has been discussed at length already, but imagine if the phone system was controlled by a single company and you could only call customers of the same company! For those living in the EU and UK (where GDPR still applies), has anyone had success with an Article 21 "right to object" request? For example, objecting to the sharing of data with Facebook when using WhatsApp. It is not an absolute right, it's supposed to be depending on individual circumstances so I expect there's lots of wiggle room for their DPO/legal team to refuse, or just stonewall. I'd love to be wrong, so please share...
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  > has anyone had success with an Article 21 "right to object" request Facebook breaches the GDPR when it comes to data subject access requests and appears to get away with it: https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/ https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/ so Article 21 is likely to have the same outcome. Facebook (and other companies) also breach the GDPR with their non-compliant consent prompts (where you can't actually decline) when visiting their websites and also get away with it.
bschne 6y ago
I signed up for facebook again a few days ago because I need an account to manage some events / pages whose target demo is still reachable on the platform. My account was dead for about two years or so before that. Within a minute or two of signing up with my (real) email and phone number, basically my whole friend list from back when I had an account, people I've texted on whatsapp once years ago, etc. were in friend suggestions. Downright creepy.
- dimitrios1 6y ago
  In a way, I see utility in companies like Facebook openly exploiting whats possible with current technologies, web APIs, and mobile platforms so that privacy laws have a target of what to address and so that the general public can get a grasp of what's going on. It's better than it happening in the dark, behind the scences. Before Facebook, if you tried to explain to a layman that your social data can be used to manipulate entire elections, people probably would have looked at you with strange and furrowed brows. Now, it's a question of the best way to address the issue.
  - bschne 6y ago
    Isn't the existence of large enough centrally controlled networks for this exploitation to become possible pretty much inseparable from it becoming a public topic that gets addressed by governements and discussed by the wider public? I don't think facebook served as a catalyst for the public to start caring about something that was going on in the same / an equally problematic form pre-facebook.
- oblio 6y ago
  I didn't even have a Facebook account until about 7 years ago. I finally made one and I had neatly sorted real life friends as part of my friends suggestion. That's when I realized they already had a shadow profile of me from everyone else, all I did was activate it and increase their confidence level from 95% or something to 100%...
- bzb6 6y ago
  Because you hadn’t deleted your account, you disabled it temporarily. It helps to read what one clicks.
secfirstmd 6y ago
"promoting safety, security and integrity across the Facebook Company Products, e.g., security systems and fighting spam, threads, abuse, or infringement activities;" This particular one is very open ended. Facebook's internal security team and it's external contractors have internal tools that use Facebooks App on people's phones to locate, block and alert if marked individuals are near company premises or high ranking executives. Let's say you protest against Facebook outside their offices, they could look you up on Facebook, find your account and if you enter a zone near their office it will send them an alert. Similarly someone with access to the system can ping your phone anywhere in the world to find a location with only the very basic controls present to prevent it from happening. No doubt the internal teams expand that to include key executives, suppliers etc. In theory they should be logged in to their own account to do this and not able to ping people in their immediate circles, in reality no doubt they could probably have a false account to bypass this. If you think about the power of this. Hundreds of people with limited oversight free to ping whomever they want as long as they can create a loose reason to do it. Remember when the Saudis were paying people with insider access at Twitter, you could imagine how much the ability of people to ping a FB user anywhere in the world is worth. Two billion users...The NSA can only dream of such access. From intelligence targets to lovers to competitors, hundreds of people have access to this data because of FB policies and tech. At least with FB you don't have to have the app on the phone. WhatsApp is however essentially the new SMS, it's impossible not to avoid it...and now slowly slowly FB is retaking control. No wonder Brian Acton has gone to Signal. The original vision of WhatsApp is rapidly being eroded by FB. Yes WhatsApp has e2e but slowly FB is being FB and looking for return on its investment.
timvisee 6y ago
Also: https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/how-we-work-with-the-facebook-companies https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/how-we...
- jraby3 6y ago
  This page is not available in my country.
  - murki 6y ago
    Not available for me in Mexico either.
  - timvisee 6y ago
    Weird! Maybe it's European specific.
  - perlgeek 6y ago
    Pasting the contents here: How we work with the Facebook Companies In this article, we are providing additional information to our users in the European Region. What are the Facebook Companies? WhatsApp is one of the Facebook Companies. The Facebook Companies include, among others, Facebook, Facebook Technologies, and WhatsApp, and together offer the Facebook Company Products. Why does WhatsApp share information with the Facebook Companies? WhatsApp works and shares information with the other Facebook Companies to receive services like infrastructure, technology, and systems that help us provide and improve WhatsApp and to keep WhatsApp and the other Facebook Companies safe and secure. When we receive services from the Facebook Companies, the information we share with them is used to help WhatsApp in accordance with our instructions. Working together allows us for example to: Provide you fast and reliable messaging and calls around the world and understand how our Services and features are performing. Ensure safety, security, and integrity across WhatsApp and the Facebook Company Products by removing spam accounts and combating abusive activity. Connect your WhatsApp experience with Facebook Company Products. Today, Facebook does not use your WhatsApp account information to improve your Facebook product experiences or provide you more relevant Facebook ad experiences on Facebook. We're always working on new ways to improve how you experience WhatsApp and the other Facebook Company Products you use. We'll keep you updated on new experiences we offer and our data practices. What information does WhatsApp share with the Facebook Companies? In order to receive services from the Facebook Companies, WhatsApp shares the information we have about you as described in the “Information We Collect” section of the Privacy Policy. For example, to provide WhatsApp with analytics services, Facebook processes the phone number you verified when you signed up for WhatsApp, some of your device information (your device identifiers associated with the same device or account, operating system version, app version, platform information, your mobile country code and network code, and flags to enable tracking of the update acceptance and control choices), and some of your usage information (when you last used WhatsApp and the date you first registered your account, and the types and frequency of your features usage) on WhatsApp’s behalf and in accordance with our instructions. WhatsApp also shares information with other Facebook Companies when this is necessary for the purpose of promoting safety, security, and integrity across the Facebook Companies. This includes the sharing of information that enables Facebook and the other Facebook Companies to determine whether a certain WhatsApp user is also using other Facebook Company Products, and to assess whether the other Facebook Companies need to take action, either against such user or to protect them. For example, WhatsApp could share the information that is necessary to enable Facebook to also take action against an identified spammer on Facebook, such as information on the incident(s) as well as the phone number they verified when they signed up for WhatsApp or device identifiers associated with the same device or account. Any such transfer is carried out in accordance with the “Our Legal Basis For Processing Data” section of the Privacy Policy. How is my WhatsApp information used by the Facebook Companies? To receive services that will help WhatsApp operate, improve, and develop our business. When WhatsApp shares information with the Facebook Companies in these ways, the Facebook Companies act as service providers and the information we share with them is used to help WhatsApp in accordance with our instructions. We share information with the other Facebook Companies as service providers. Service providers help companies like WhatsApp by providing infrastructure, technologies, systems, tools, information, and expertise to help us provide and improve the WhatsApp service for our users. This enables us, for example, to understand how our Services are being used, and how it compares to usage across the Facebook Companies. By sharing information with the other Facebook Companies, such as the phone number you verified when you signed up for WhatsApp and the last time your account was used, we may be able to work out whether or not a particular WhatsApp account belongs to someone who also uses another service in the Facebook Companies. This allows us to more accurately report information about our Services and to improve our Services. So, for example, we can then understand how people use WhatsApp services compared to their use of other apps or services in the other Facebook Companies, which in turn helps WhatsApp to explore potential features or product improvements. We can also count how many unique users WhatsApp has, for example, by establishing which of our users do not use any other Facebook apps and how many unique users there are across the Facebook Companies. This will help WhatsApp more completely report the activity on our service, including to investors and regulators. It also helps WhatsApp as we explore ways to build a sustainable business. For example, as we previously announced, we're exploring ways for people and businesses to communicate using WhatsApp, and this could include working with the other Facebook Companies to help people find businesses they're interested in and communicate with via WhatsApp. In this way, Facebook could enable users to communicate via WhatsApp with businesses they find on Facebook. To keep WhatsApp and other Facebook family services safe and secure. We share information with the other Facebook Companies in accordance with the “Our Legal Basis For Processing Data” section of the Privacy Policy, and vice versa, to help fight spam and abuse on our Services, help keep them secure, and promote safety, security, and integrity on and off our Services. So if, for example, any member of the Facebook Companies discovers that someone is using its services for illegal purposes, it can disable their account and notify the other Facebook Companies so that they can also consider doing the same. In this way, we only share information for this purpose in relation to users that have first been identified as having violated our Terms of Service or threatened the safety or security of our users or others, about which other members of our family of companies should be warned. To keep WhatsApp and other Facebook Companies' services safe and secure, we need to understand which accounts across the Facebook Companies relate to the same user, so we can take appropriate action when we identify a user who violates our Terms of Services or presents a safety or security threat to others. We do not share data for improving Facebook products on Facebook and providing more relevant Facebook ad experiences. Today, Facebook does not use your WhatsApp account information to improve your Facebook product experiences or provide you more relevant Facebook ad experiences on Facebook. This is a result of discussions with the Irish Data Protection Commission and other Data Protection Authorities in Europe. We're always working on new ways to improve how you experience WhatsApp and the other Facebook Company Products you use. Should we choose to share such data with the Facebook Companies for this purpose in the future, we will only do so when we reach an understanding with the Irish Data Protection Commission on a future mechanism to enable such use. We'll keep you updated on new experiences we offer and our information practices. Whose WhatsApp information is shared with the Facebook Companies for these purposes? We share information for all WhatsApp users if they choose to use our Services. This may include those WhatsApp users who are not Facebook users because we need to have the ability to share information for all of our users, if necessary, in order to be able to receive valuable services from the Facebook Companies and fulfill the important purposes described in our Privacy Policy and this article. In all cases, we share the minimum amount of information that is needed to fulfill these purposes. We also ensure that the information we share is up to date, so if you choose to update your WhatsApp phone number, for example, that number will also be updated by the members of the Facebook family who have received it from us. Importantly, WhatsApp does not share your WhatsApp contacts with Facebook or any other members of the Facebook Companies for use for their own purposes, and there are no plans to do so. What choices do I have about the Facebook Companies' use of my WhatsApp information? You can always stop using our Services and delete your account through the in-app Delete My Account feature. Deleting your WhatsApp account will not affect your ability to continue using other apps and services offered by the other Facebook Companies, just as deleting your Facebook account, for example, will not affect your ability to continue using WhatsApp. Please see WhatsApp’s Privacy Policy for further information on what happens when you delete your WhatsApp account.
blinkingled 6y ago
How does it affect someone if they don't have Facebook account or even have the FB app installed? (i.e. someone using just WhatsApp.) Does FB still get my data via WhatsApp?
- baggachipz 6y ago
  I think it would be extremely foolish to assume they don't.
  - blinkingled 6y ago
    I suspected that might be/is the case - but I also read their privacy policy and they claim to provide end to end encryption, not store your messages after your device downloads it and I haven't seen any ads. So I was trying to figure if they're lying about the encryption or FB doesn't get any data apart from my contact list which presumably isn't encrypted end to end. It's a weird situation really.
harry8 6y ago
This is a tricky problem and there are a few solutions, none of which are perfect. By far the best one if you can manage it is to delete your facebook account and apps and never look back. Encourage whatsapp contacts to move to signal is probably just annoying for you and them but it seems to be steadily happening, so make sure you have a signal account.
- tolbish 6y ago
  Looks like group video calling is still a beta feature in Signal. Would love to know if others find it to be near Whatsapp quality.
orange_tee 6y ago
I have an empty Facebook profile and use Whatsapp all the time. The friend suggestions on Facebook that I get are complete strangers. I don't know how this works but none of my Whatsapp contacts ever appear as suggestions and none of the suggestions are people I ever knew. I don't know how I managed this.
dannyw 6y ago
Is this post written to invite a breakup?
dmitriid 6y ago
> Learn more about the other Facebook Companies and their privacy practices by reviewing their privacy policies. a.k.a.: "we absolve ourselves of all responsibility because you should read the million or so pages of dense legalese yourself" And this is most likely illegal under GDPR.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
I was hoping this was about how WhatsApp (the app) could now do a Facebook messaging, or somesuch. It seems more about how WhatsApp/Facebook the company use your data in the background, rather than "how WhatsApp works ...".
DisjointedHunt 6y ago
Why can't comments on Hacker news follow etiquette of staying on topic? People here respond to the top comment directly with a point that's not even closely related to the top comment. And then everyone else follows. If you're making a new point that's not gaining from the chained comments feature or directly conversing/adding on to the person above you, just create a new comment.
kerng 6y ago
Didn't Facebook legally state they will NOT do this when acquiring WhatsApp- to me it sounds as this can be prohibited and daily fines with subsequent breakup should be in order. Sometimes I wish I had studied law...
- asiando 6y ago
  I only remember the founders publicly promising that WhatsApp won’t be absorbed into Facebook or something like that. I don’t know if they also put it in the legal documents.
Strs2FillMyDrms 6y ago
In my case the only annoying thing is when male friends ask me in person if I have an Instagram account, it may have pooped as a recommendation because of this, and I categorically deny it... they obviously know that it's just for the thirst, but I deny it nonetheless. I think Instagram has an option to not show your number and not to appear in recommendations, but I'm sure it doesn't work.
doubleorseven 6y ago
I've deleted my WhatsApp account 2 months ago even though I also live in a country where WhatsApp is mandatory. How am I doing so far: * I miss a lot of work stuff even though some update me on the important stuff through Signal. * I lost contact with friends I can't communicate with anymore. * I feel that I have more free time to focus on my family and close friends. Probably because my neighbors can't sneak into my head with things that don't really effect me. * The frequency I check my phone dropped by 80%. * Since I closed my instagram account and Facebook acount 8 years ago, I am now "Zuckerberg free". It's hard but It's Worth it.
renewiltord 6y ago
Honestly, all this is fine. So long as they don't scan the content - not because I care about that but because I act as if they have E2EE (which AFAIK from people I know at FB, they do) - I'm fine. After all, who I talk to isn't a big deal. I just don't want to be dragnetted into a drug bust because while I don't buy my drugs on WhatsApp I definitely discuss using them.
- 29083011397778 6y ago
  Whatsapp is end-to-end encrypted. Google Drive backups are not. [1] Should the wrong person/people slip up, your messages are no longer end-to-end encrypted, and are stored on Google's servers [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/whatsapp-warns-free-google-drive-backups-are-not-encrypted/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/whatsapp-warns-free-google-dri...
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Oh that's a good point.
amelius 6y ago
We need telecommunication laws like we had in the old days. No messing with our data. And the ability to migrate to a different network.
gcblkjaidfj 6y ago
much better link https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25662215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25662215
utf_8x 6y ago
Once again - Signal[0] as an alternative. It's fully Open-Source (including the backend) and their crypto is public and independently verified[1][2][3]... [0] https://signal.org/en/ https://signal.org/en/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Encryption_p https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Encryption_p... [2] https://threatpost.com/signal-audit-reveals-protocol-cryptog https://threatpost.com/signal-audit-reveals-protocol-cryptog... [3] https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1013.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1013.pdf [PDF]
- nalekberov 6y ago
  Signal is not good enough either in the long run, because of its centralization. End-to-end encryption is sold as a bulletproof privacy solution, it might solve the most important element of privacy (having your messages not readable by others), in the end they have metadata stored in their end, your social graph, when you are online/offline etc. (there are others things i am sure) So giving your trust to another party just because they look “promising” does not work. Centralization is the source of all Evil.
  - 7v3x3n3sem9vv 6y ago
    Look into how Signal operates, they really are different than the competition and continue to innovate engineering new ways to ensure they don't store any metadata on their servers. They've been subpoenaed before and the only information they could provide was the date a phone number registered and the last day it contacted their servers. That's it! I do agree that moving to another centralized service is not the optimal option, but seeing the amount of effort they put into ensuring all new features ensure your privacy instills a lot of confidence in their service. Long-term I'm personally rooting for either Element, Briar, or Session, but also realize they are not quite ready for mainstream and even when they are, they may be out of reach for grandma. in the short term I've migrated most of my family friends, including my grandma, to Signal and have had zero complaints. It works more or less like WhatsApp but pretty much guarantees your privacy, which I appreciate.
    - 6y ago
niqmk 6y ago
Welcome to facebook ads "showing relevant offers and ads across the Facebook Company Products;"
niqmk 6y ago
"showing relevant offers and ads across the Facebook Company Products;" Welcome to facebook ads

329 points by woliveirajr 6y ago

rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago

Except for social network effects (larger user base), what are WhatsApp's advantages vs Signal?

uppsalax 6y ago
There was the same debate over Whatsapp vs Telegram clash. The fact here is that network effects play a big role in these kind of business models. Moreover think about the fact that whatsapp was one of the first entrants, and was bought by Mark Zuckerberg. Brand is another big player when we consider and analyse that competitive landscape... Security is one of the most important factors nowadays, especially if we consider the data breaches number, that is increasing dramatically (600% since covid-19 outbreak). But are like p2p models, if there aren't many people to create traffic, it isn't worth it (for the moment at least). And in case of messaging apps these people must be your friends! (Word-of-mouth) Do not misunderstand me, I am 100% for security and privacy, but here users are driven by other factors unfortunately.
Closi 6y ago
In the UK I don't know a person without WhatsApp, pretty much everyone uses it. I don't know a single person who has signal. If I say to a friend "I'll message you on WhatsApp" they will be like "ok great". If I say to a friend "I'll message you on Signal" they will be like "What is that? Oh I have to download something? Don't you have WhatsApp? Screw it just send me a text." So you can't really say "Apart from larger user base why do people use it?". It's like saying "Apart from an inability to breathe, why don't people live underwater?"
- tommyage 6y ago
  I just informed all my important contacts about the deletion of my whats app account per this message and told them my substitution. All people who are important to me migrated. Some refused for a long time for no reason, but in the end installed a separate app alongside WA. But I get your position: Judging by the amount of unfair usability and amount of third parties involved in any co.uk-domain, it appears to me that the common folk gives a shit about it over there. However, I wont get any site a visit who does the above. There are alternatives to gain information.
- type0 6y ago
  > It's like saying "Apart from an inability to breathe, why don't people live underwater?" Because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_habitat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_habitat
tinus_hn 6y ago
In most markets, almost everyone has a WhatsApp account. I don’t have a Signal account and nobody ever asked for it.
pixiemagic 6y ago
Well, that is surely by far the main reason anyone uses any messaging app. The majority of people don't care about features or even privacy, and use the app that everyone else is on. In Europe/the UK at least, that seems to be WhatsApp. Outside of techie people, if you ask someone to use something like Signal you'll be met with "why? I already have WhatsApp". "larger user base" is an understatement; the difference is several orders of magnitude. (on a personal level, I don't enjoy using WA, but it's necessary here unless you only communicate within a bubble of tech workers)
outime 6y ago
The thing with WhatsApp is that besides the largest user base (most important reason IMHO) it just works very well. I don’t know about Signal as I’ve briefly used it but why would anyone switch apart from us? You can’t just convince the majority of the users with privacy arguments or even hypothetical extra features from Signal. Only if WhatsApp would introduce something really annoying (huge ads, fees, constant technical issues) people would start to move. But even Telegram which is so much better IMHO (albeit privacy by default isn’t better) will hardly be #1 ever if nothing of the above happens.
- jjbinx007 6y ago
  I believe WhatsApp used to charge a small fee a few years back.
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    They charged $1/year “on paper” but never actually collected it. That would have been plenty of revenue for any normal people but they got greedy and realised their user’s private data was worth much much more.
    - meibo 6y ago
      Mind that this was before the Facebook buy-out/the original creators leaving, so I assume strategic masterminds at FB reversed that pretty quickly.
    - robertlagrant 6y ago
      I'm curious to know if when I make some voice/video calls, and send and receive some data and push notifications, how far that dollar would really go.
      - Nextgrid 6y ago
        At scale, that dollar will go very far. Unmetered bandwidth is cheap if you look beyond the cloud providers and the majority of calls can be established directly (in fact WhatsApp does use UPnP to map ports presumably for direct connections) so you'd only ever use that bandwidth for texts/transient media uploads and the small percentage of calls that can't be established directly and need to be proxied through. WhatsApp doesn't store media long-term so storage requirements are also small.
nvr219 6y ago
The biggest reason is larger user base. But here are two things I do in WhatsApp that I can't do in Signal: - Share live location. If I need to meet up with somebody, or let someone know how far away I am and when I'm arriving, I use share live location. "Share for 1 hour." In Signal you can share your location at a moment in time but it doesn't update. - Broadcast messages ("mass text" basically). In WhatsApp I can send a message to a list of people without the people on the list seeing each other (to them it looks like I messaged them 1:1). In Signal I would have to use a group and all the members would see each other.
- cja 6y ago
  Almost - they get the little broadcast icon under the message
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > In WhatsApp I can send a message to a list of people without the people on the list seeing each other What's the use case for this? "Happy New Year!"?
  - nvr219 6y ago
    Here are a few: 1. I'm on a few "mailing lists" that are delivered via WhatsApp, like "weekly one-minute sermon" type stuff. 2. I have a friends that are all into the same kind of music but don't know each other. I use broadcast to send them links to bandcamp, spotify, etc. 3. I have a broadcast list for my local friends. If I want to get rid of something or looking for something ("hey I'm getting rid of this, do you want it" [photo]) I use that list.
  - lxgr 6y ago
    Yes, or sharing a joke, a recipe, a holiday photo etc. with friends and family that might not know each other. I don't use it often, but it's very convenient.
- octorian 6y ago
  > Share live location This can be an extremely useful feature at times, and is also E2E encrypted with a similar model to group chats (but modified to allow for lossy delivery). > Broadcast messages This is one of those interesting features that many people are completely oblivious to, don't use, and don't understand why anyone needs. Meanwhile, many other people use it constantly and simply can't live without it.
arximboldi 6y ago
As someone that does not have a smartphone, WhatsApp and Signal are really annoying because they are the two apps that can not be used without one (even though they have desktop apps). Telegram and FB Messenger and Hangouts at least can, but here in Europe WhatsApp is the default for everything and there are things for which it is becoming almost completely necessary. But I simply find the whole chat ecosystem so depressing. A few years ago at least I could chat with Google Talk people via Jabber. It is really absurd that instant messaging is not federated like email. Of course there is one explanation: while Email was invented in the 70s at research institutions with goals beyond profit, IM already started in the 90s with companies trying to capitalize their user-base with vendor lock-in... (ICQ, MSN, etc.). Sad, sad, sad.
- Timpy 6y ago
  I'm stepping out of my domain knowledge on this one to start a discussion, I hope to have my points corrected where I'm wrong. Another note, I'm not advocating for FB's methods I'm strictly interested in some cryptography aspects. As I understand it, in order to have real end-to-end encryption (the real stuff, not some marketing term) each device has to generate a long set of keys and with each message sent, they cycle through to the next key. If WhatsApp is doing what it reports it's doing and it actually is end-to-end encrypted then the web application needs to use your phone because it needs that set of keys. I'm not sure if it specifically sends through your phone or if it sends via the webapp, but you have to use the keys in the correct order or the device you're contacting won't be able to decrypt the next message.
  - rkangel 6y ago
    Yes, WhatsApp is doing encryption that is E2E between two devices. That's a good security model. There's no particular reason that that has to be two phones though - could be desktop, wifi tablet etc.. That limitation is a result of a 'product' decision where your identity on WhatsApp is a mobile phone number. That decision was a big part of what allowed WhatsApp to scale quickly (people didn't need to create an account, just install the app and start messaging people whose numbers they had).
fsflover 6y ago
Why would you replace one centralized system for another? Every such system gets in trouble once it's too big (in terms of money and politically). Choose Matrix instead.
corobo 6y ago
You can't exclude the one defining reason haha. That's all there is, other people use it.
nelsonenzo 6y ago
Signal unfortunately has limited media support. Otherwise I would love to have my wife on it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- drcongo 6y ago
  I've found Signal's media support to be decent (although it absolutely mangles video). What are you missing?
  - nelsonenzo 6y ago
    multi-photo attachments and video.
rattray 6y ago
In the past I found signal to be less slick and reliable than whatsapp, but hopefully that's no longer true
simias 6y ago
Signal UI is mediocre. I want it to succeed, but both WhatsApp and Telegram are simply a lot more convenient to use. WA and Telegram have a pure web client when you want to quickly have access to your chats without installing anything. If you decide to install the standalone clients you'll find that Telegram is vastly ahead of Signal. You can change the spellchecking language and add dictionaries, you have a lot more options for formatting messages (code blocks etc...), it deals better with multimedia content like inline audio, it's a lot faster and less resource-hungry. The only reason I still bother with Signal is because I know that, in theory, from a security perspective it's the better of the three. In practice it's by far the worst though.
- drcongo 6y ago
  This post sums up my feelings exactly. Signal is objectively ugly and has quite a lot of display bugs that there's really no excuse for in a messaging app. Telegram is (subjectively) beautiful - they really nailed the UI - and is by far the nicest to use of the three. WhatsApp is both hideous and horrible to use. I wish I could drag people away from it, but even having had my WhatsApp status set to "WhatsApp is spyware, message me on Telegram" for the past 3 years, not a single person has switched.
  - screamingninja 6y ago
    > Signal is objectively ugly That's a weird thing to say. How is anything objectively ugly? It is a matter of opinion after all.
    - drcongo 6y ago
      You're right, I've come back 5 days later to correct myself. I've been using Signal a lot more in the last week and actually nearly all the things that I would say justified the use of the word "objectively" are now fixed. They were all bugs, rather than design choices - things like inconsistent padding, and a tiny unpadded input window when typing long messages. It's actually pretty nice now.
Atariman 6y ago
I would recommend Threema. It's been recently open-sourced and has the most secure encryption mechanism. https://threema.ch/en/open-source https://threema.ch/en/open-source
- drcongo 6y ago
  I had Threema installed but not set up so your comment prompted me to set it up and I don't think they could have come up with a more confusing setup if they'd tried. First screen asked me to wiggle my finger on the screen without offering any explanation. Second screen gave me a random string and told me that's my ID. Third screen asked me to add a password for Threema Safe, whatever that is. I then couldn't leave that screen at all because the on-screen keyboard covered over the next button, and the one big green button that was visible did nothing. Eventually I accidentally swiped and got to another screen that asked me what Threema Safe I wanted to use, like I have any idea what a Threema Safe is. After that it asked me to put in a username, even though I already have a Threema ID from several screens ago. Then it asked for my phone number. So now it has a Threema ID, a phone number and a username and I have to guess which of those is useful. Then it asked me to sync my contacts, I didn't do that. Finally, I got to a screen with a QR code, my nickname, my Threema ID, something asking me to Enter Code for Linked Number, and a Key Fingerprint. This thing bears only a passing resemblance to a messaging app. Most of that setup I kind of understand, but then I'm the sort of person who reads HN. There is not a hope in hell of getting even 1% of the people I know to even make it through the setup process though. Once inside, I apparently have one contact called ECHOECHO who, when I message them, repeat the message back to me. The messaging UI is slightly nicer than Signal and WhatsApp's though, but not as nice as Telegram's.
  - Atariman 6y ago
    You're right, the UI maybe could have been a bit more intuitive. However, the setup is far from rocket science and could easily be improved by the developers. And yeah, it may only have 1% of users but thats's only because 95% have WA... It's a choice about freedom and you have to start somewhere. I converted more than 50% of my contacts to Threema - the rest has expensive phones but obviously no money to protect their privacy.
LUmBULtERA 6y ago
I was able to get most of my family and friends I regularly message onto Signal. It has worked great for us. But then -- my circles are small and few, so it wasn't too hard. I saw no advantage of WhatsApp after getting them to install Signal.
dearjames 6y ago
Well, in Zimbabwe because of the large user base WhatsApp got when it initially arrived (due to reduced charges, SMSs where about 15cents a pop then) around 2011-2012, the ISPs have effectively made it the only way to communicate economically by providing a "bundle". Basically they offer you a drastically reduced price to only access WhatsApp, mostly text message without media at that. Compared to the data plan that can access the whole internet it is very very cheap to use just WhatsApp. The cheapest WhatsApp bundle on the most popular network (Econet) is currently at around 51cents to text the whole week (65MB of data) vs the $13 for 8gigs. Granted the 8gigs is for a month but $13 is a big amount in this part of the world, and with regular data there's the aspect of discipline to not use all that data on youtube and other data hungry apps/websites.
- tilolebo 6y ago
  How does this technically work? Does Econet use a dns-based filter?
boltzmann_ 6y ago
> except for social network effects In the social networks app world this is all that matters

kace91 6y ago

I already knew this but it's still fucked. In my country WhatsApp is used for everything from talking to friends through setting up a date with your hairdresser to group activities like school parents groups. There is an expectation that the information you share by someone having your number is very limited - the person that has your number can text you, yes, but they can't know about you, and you can limit the small amount of info you let through like your profile picture or your online state using privacy controls. This expectation is completely removed when adding somebody's number to your contact list is enough for Facebook to do its magic and reveal the owner in your Facebook friends suggestions. I've had it happen dozens of times, I start texting a tinder match and suddenly her profile is there in my suggestions. It's common for it to misfire and I end up being suggested the personal account of the owner of a business I bought something for. They don't even need to text you, you add the number to your phone's contact list and it's there. Facebook needs to be broken apart, and we need a law that the data you share with an app can't be used for others period, even more so if they were separate businesses when you started using the service, and a change of policies is not enough - you might already be locked in.

raziel2p 6y ago
This has never happened to me, probably because I don't install the Facebook app and don't give Messenger Lite access to my contacts. If Facebook and Whatsapp were sharing phone numbers or metadata behind the scenes I would expect to see a lot of suggestions when I log in to the Facebook website, but I don't. Still agree with your opinion, though. Also, I find it annoying that you can't message someone on WhatsApp without adding them to contacts.
- csunbird 6y ago
  But your contacts do install the apps and Facebook can now match you.
- osobo 6y ago
  They don't as much share info as live off the same ecosystem in your phone. Regular users, who don't actively block their FB apps from accessing their phones in depth, will store Whatsapp contacts on their phones, which in turn are read by the FB and/or Messenger app. Since neither knows the context, it just assumes its a new contact and show you info accordingly.

hadrien01 6y ago

> When Facebook notified the acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014, it informed the Commission that it would be unable to establish reliable automated matching between Facebook users' accounts and WhatsApp users' accounts. It stated this both in the notification form and in a reply to a request of information from the Commission. However, in August 2016, WhatsApp announced updates to its terms of service and privacy policy, including the possibility of linking WhatsApp users' phone numbers with Facebook users' identities. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_17_1369 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_17_...

simias 6y ago
I may be misunderstanding this legalese vocabulary but doesn't "unable" mean "technically incapable"? As in, there's no technical way of matching users? Because if so, man, whoever wrote this must have laughed a lot when they wrote it. You may not be able to match 100% of users of course, but with the amount of personal data FB has access to it should be able to match a good chunk of the userbase with a high degree of confidence if it wanted to.
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  > doesn't "unable" mean "technically incapable"? Unable is followed by "to establish reliable automated matching". I think the key words here are "reliable" and "automated". There's a ton of wiggle room in those words.
- gabaix 6y ago
  In the 2014 merger procedure [1] Facebook described it as 'very hard', and 'against its own interest'. > "The Notifying Party submitted that integration between WhatsApp and Facebook would pose significant technical difficulties. Notably, integration of WhatsApp's and Facebook's networks would require matching WhatsApp users' profiles with their profiles on Facebook (or vice versa). This would be complicated without the users' involvement since Facebook and WhatsApp use different unique user identifiers: Facebook ID and mobile phone number, respectively. Consequently, Facebook would be unable to automatically and reliably associate a Facebook ID with a valid phone number used by a user on WhatsApp. Matching of WhatsApp profiles with Facebook profiles would most likely have to be done manually by users, which in the Notifying Party's view is likely to result in a significant backlash from both users of Facebook and WhatsApp who do not want to match their accounts. Finally, the Notifying Party stated that, beyond the difficulties in matching user IDs, significant engineering hurdles would have to be overcome to enable cross-platform communications, reflecting the fundamentally different architecture of Facebook and WhatsApp (including the former being cloud-based, the latter not)." It seems the EU commission interpreted the statement as 'not possible'. Facebook played them. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/decisions/m7217_20141003_20310_3962132_EN.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/decisions/m72...

neals 6y ago

What annoys me to no end is that I was Whatsapping with a local restaurant for food delivery during the lockdown and two days later, the owner pops up in my Facebook "suggested friends" list.

nashashmi 6y ago
Could be that the person you contacted has their information totally open to FB
- 2sk21 6y ago
  This sounds right. WhatsApp and Facebook both have access to contacts so information flows between them through this channel
jtsiskin 6y ago
I think the most likely explanation for this is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
- neals 6y ago
  Or is it your confirmation bias where you expect people to distrust Facebook for the wrong reasons so that you can post that link? Because funnily enough, I didn't place blame in my comment. I just pointed out my 'annoyance'. You, on the other hand, concluded something from that. Ironically.
  - jtsiskin 6y ago
    What other reason for ‘annoyance’ could you have, other than assuming that the WhatsApp messages lead to the suggested friend, and thus you were annoyed that the data was (supposedly) shared? If you just also just thought it was a coincidence, what would you be annoyed about?

xfz 6y ago

I've been resisting the Facebook (including WhatsApp) monopoly but at personal cost so I'm starting to capitulate. The network effect has been discussed at length already, but imagine if the phone system was controlled by a single company and you could only call customers of the same company! For those living in the EU and UK (where GDPR still applies), has anyone had success with an Article 21 "right to object" request? For example, objecting to the sharing of data with Facebook when using WhatsApp. It is not an absolute right, it's supposed to be depending on individual circumstances so I expect there's lots of wiggle room for their DPO/legal team to refuse, or just stonewall. I'd love to be wrong, so please share...

Nextgrid 6y ago
> has anyone had success with an Article 21 "right to object" request Facebook breaches the GDPR when it comes to data subject access requests and appears to get away with it: https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/ https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/ so Article 21 is likely to have the same outcome. Facebook (and other companies) also breach the GDPR with their non-compliant consent prompts (where you can't actually decline) when visiting their websites and also get away with it.

bschne 6y ago

I signed up for facebook again a few days ago because I need an account to manage some events / pages whose target demo is still reachable on the platform. My account was dead for about two years or so before that. Within a minute or two of signing up with my (real) email and phone number, basically my whole friend list from back when I had an account, people I've texted on whatsapp once years ago, etc. were in friend suggestions. Downright creepy.

dimitrios1 6y ago
In a way, I see utility in companies like Facebook openly exploiting whats possible with current technologies, web APIs, and mobile platforms so that privacy laws have a target of what to address and so that the general public can get a grasp of what's going on. It's better than it happening in the dark, behind the scences. Before Facebook, if you tried to explain to a layman that your social data can be used to manipulate entire elections, people probably would have looked at you with strange and furrowed brows. Now, it's a question of the best way to address the issue.
- bschne 6y ago
  Isn't the existence of large enough centrally controlled networks for this exploitation to become possible pretty much inseparable from it becoming a public topic that gets addressed by governements and discussed by the wider public? I don't think facebook served as a catalyst for the public to start caring about something that was going on in the same / an equally problematic form pre-facebook.
oblio 6y ago
I didn't even have a Facebook account until about 7 years ago. I finally made one and I had neatly sorted real life friends as part of my friends suggestion. That's when I realized they already had a shadow profile of me from everyone else, all I did was activate it and increase their confidence level from 95% or something to 100%...
bzb6 6y ago
Because you hadn’t deleted your account, you disabled it temporarily. It helps to read what one clicks.

secfirstmd 6y ago

"promoting safety, security and integrity across the Facebook Company Products, e.g., security systems and fighting spam, threads, abuse, or infringement activities;" This particular one is very open ended. Facebook's internal security team and it's external contractors have internal tools that use Facebooks App on people's phones to locate, block and alert if marked individuals are near company premises or high ranking executives. Let's say you protest against Facebook outside their offices, they could look you up on Facebook, find your account and if you enter a zone near their office it will send them an alert. Similarly someone with access to the system can ping your phone anywhere in the world to find a location with only the very basic controls present to prevent it from happening. No doubt the internal teams expand that to include key executives, suppliers etc. In theory they should be logged in to their own account to do this and not able to ping people in their immediate circles, in reality no doubt they could probably have a false account to bypass this. If you think about the power of this. Hundreds of people with limited oversight free to ping whomever they want as long as they can create a loose reason to do it. Remember when the Saudis were paying people with insider access at Twitter, you could imagine how much the ability of people to ping a FB user anywhere in the world is worth. Two billion users...The NSA can only dream of such access. From intelligence targets to lovers to competitors, hundreds of people have access to this data because of FB policies and tech. At least with FB you don't have to have the app on the phone. WhatsApp is however essentially the new SMS, it's impossible not to avoid it...and now slowly slowly FB is retaking control. No wonder Brian Acton has gone to Signal. The original vision of WhatsApp is rapidly being eroded by FB. Yes WhatsApp has e2e but slowly FB is being FB and looking for return on its investment.

timvisee 6y ago

Also: https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/how-we-work-with-the-facebook-companies https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/how-we...

jraby3 6y ago
This page is not available in my country.
- murki 6y ago
  Not available for me in Mexico either.
- timvisee 6y ago
  Weird! Maybe it's European specific.
- perlgeek 6y ago
  Pasting the contents here: How we work with the Facebook Companies In this article, we are providing additional information to our users in the European Region. What are the Facebook Companies? WhatsApp is one of the Facebook Companies. The Facebook Companies include, among others, Facebook, Facebook Technologies, and WhatsApp, and together offer the Facebook Company Products. Why does WhatsApp share information with the Facebook Companies? WhatsApp works and shares information with the other Facebook Companies to receive services like infrastructure, technology, and systems that help us provide and improve WhatsApp and to keep WhatsApp and the other Facebook Companies safe and secure. When we receive services from the Facebook Companies, the information we share with them is used to help WhatsApp in accordance with our instructions. Working together allows us for example to: Provide you fast and reliable messaging and calls around the world and understand how our Services and features are performing. Ensure safety, security, and integrity across WhatsApp and the Facebook Company Products by removing spam accounts and combating abusive activity. Connect your WhatsApp experience with Facebook Company Products. Today, Facebook does not use your WhatsApp account information to improve your Facebook product experiences or provide you more relevant Facebook ad experiences on Facebook. We're always working on new ways to improve how you experience WhatsApp and the other Facebook Company Products you use. We'll keep you updated on new experiences we offer and our data practices. What information does WhatsApp share with the Facebook Companies? In order to receive services from the Facebook Companies, WhatsApp shares the information we have about you as described in the “Information We Collect” section of the Privacy Policy. For example, to provide WhatsApp with analytics services, Facebook processes the phone number you verified when you signed up for WhatsApp, some of your device information (your device identifiers associated with the same device or account, operating system version, app version, platform information, your mobile country code and network code, and flags to enable tracking of the update acceptance and control choices), and some of your usage information (when you last used WhatsApp and the date you first registered your account, and the types and frequency of your features usage) on WhatsApp’s behalf and in accordance with our instructions. WhatsApp also shares information with other Facebook Companies when this is necessary for the purpose of promoting safety, security, and integrity across the Facebook Companies. This includes the sharing of information that enables Facebook and the other Facebook Companies to determine whether a certain WhatsApp user is also using other Facebook Company Products, and to assess whether the other Facebook Companies need to take action, either against such user or to protect them. For example, WhatsApp could share the information that is necessary to enable Facebook to also take action against an identified spammer on Facebook, such as information on the incident(s) as well as the phone number they verified when they signed up for WhatsApp or device identifiers associated with the same device or account. Any such transfer is carried out in accordance with the “Our Legal Basis For Processing Data” section of the Privacy Policy. How is my WhatsApp information used by the Facebook Companies? To receive services that will help WhatsApp operate, improve, and develop our business. When WhatsApp shares information with the Facebook Companies in these ways, the Facebook Companies act as service providers and the information we share with them is used to help WhatsApp in accordance with our instructions. We share information with the other Facebook Companies as service providers. Service providers help companies like WhatsApp by providing infrastructure, technologies, systems, tools, information, and expertise to help us provide and improve the WhatsApp service for our users. This enables us, for example, to understand how our Services are being used, and how it compares to usage across the Facebook Companies. By sharing information with the other Facebook Companies, such as the phone number you verified when you signed up for WhatsApp and the last time your account was used, we may be able to work out whether or not a particular WhatsApp account belongs to someone who also uses another service in the Facebook Companies. This allows us to more accurately report information about our Services and to improve our Services. So, for example, we can then understand how people use WhatsApp services compared to their use of other apps or services in the other Facebook Companies, which in turn helps WhatsApp to explore potential features or product improvements. We can also count how many unique users WhatsApp has, for example, by establishing which of our users do not use any other Facebook apps and how many unique users there are across the Facebook Companies. This will help WhatsApp more completely report the activity on our service, including to investors and regulators. It also helps WhatsApp as we explore ways to build a sustainable business. For example, as we previously announced, we're exploring ways for people and businesses to communicate using WhatsApp, and this could include working with the other Facebook Companies to help people find businesses they're interested in and communicate with via WhatsApp. In this way, Facebook could enable users to communicate via WhatsApp with businesses they find on Facebook. To keep WhatsApp and other Facebook family services safe and secure. We share information with the other Facebook Companies in accordance with the “Our Legal Basis For Processing Data” section of the Privacy Policy, and vice versa, to help fight spam and abuse on our Services, help keep them secure, and promote safety, security, and integrity on and off our Services. So if, for example, any member of the Facebook Companies discovers that someone is using its services for illegal purposes, it can disable their account and notify the other Facebook Companies so that they can also consider doing the same. In this way, we only share information for this purpose in relation to users that have first been identified as having violated our Terms of Service or threatened the safety or security of our users or others, about which other members of our family of companies should be warned. To keep WhatsApp and other Facebook Companies' services safe and secure, we need to understand which accounts across the Facebook Companies relate to the same user, so we can take appropriate action when we identify a user who violates our Terms of Services or presents a safety or security threat to others. We do not share data for improving Facebook products on Facebook and providing more relevant Facebook ad experiences. Today, Facebook does not use your WhatsApp account information to improve your Facebook product experiences or provide you more relevant Facebook ad experiences on Facebook. This is a result of discussions with the Irish Data Protection Commission and other Data Protection Authorities in Europe. We're always working on new ways to improve how you experience WhatsApp and the other Facebook Company Products you use. Should we choose to share such data with the Facebook Companies for this purpose in the future, we will only do so when we reach an understanding with the Irish Data Protection Commission on a future mechanism to enable such use. We'll keep you updated on new experiences we offer and our information practices. Whose WhatsApp information is shared with the Facebook Companies for these purposes? We share information for all WhatsApp users if they choose to use our Services. This may include those WhatsApp users who are not Facebook users because we need to have the ability to share information for all of our users, if necessary, in order to be able to receive valuable services from the Facebook Companies and fulfill the important purposes described in our Privacy Policy and this article. In all cases, we share the minimum amount of information that is needed to fulfill these purposes. We also ensure that the information we share is up to date, so if you choose to update your WhatsApp phone number, for example, that number will also be updated by the members of the Facebook family who have received it from us. Importantly, WhatsApp does not share your WhatsApp contacts with Facebook or any other members of the Facebook Companies for use for their own purposes, and there are no plans to do so. What choices do I have about the Facebook Companies' use of my WhatsApp information? You can always stop using our Services and delete your account through the in-app Delete My Account feature. Deleting your WhatsApp account will not affect your ability to continue using other apps and services offered by the other Facebook Companies, just as deleting your Facebook account, for example, will not affect your ability to continue using WhatsApp. Please see WhatsApp’s Privacy Policy for further information on what happens when you delete your WhatsApp account.

blinkingled 6y ago

How does it affect someone if they don't have Facebook account or even have the FB app installed? (i.e. someone using just WhatsApp.) Does FB still get my data via WhatsApp?

baggachipz 6y ago
I think it would be extremely foolish to assume they don't.
- blinkingled 6y ago
  I suspected that might be/is the case - but I also read their privacy policy and they claim to provide end to end encryption, not store your messages after your device downloads it and I haven't seen any ads. So I was trying to figure if they're lying about the encryption or FB doesn't get any data apart from my contact list which presumably isn't encrypted end to end. It's a weird situation really.

harry8 6y ago

This is a tricky problem and there are a few solutions, none of which are perfect. By far the best one if you can manage it is to delete your facebook account and apps and never look back. Encourage whatsapp contacts to move to signal is probably just annoying for you and them but it seems to be steadily happening, so make sure you have a signal account.

tolbish 6y ago
Looks like group video calling is still a beta feature in Signal. Would love to know if others find it to be near Whatsapp quality.

orange_tee 6y ago

I have an empty Facebook profile and use Whatsapp all the time. The friend suggestions on Facebook that I get are complete strangers. I don't know how this works but none of my Whatsapp contacts ever appear as suggestions and none of the suggestions are people I ever knew. I don't know how I managed this.

dannyw 6y ago

Is this post written to invite a breakup?

dmitriid 6y ago

> Learn more about the other Facebook Companies and their privacy practices by reviewing their privacy policies. a.k.a.: "we absolve ourselves of all responsibility because you should read the million or so pages of dense legalese yourself" And this is most likely illegal under GDPR.

pbhjpbhj 6y ago

I was hoping this was about how WhatsApp (the app) could now do a Facebook messaging, or somesuch. It seems more about how WhatsApp/Facebook the company use your data in the background, rather than "how WhatsApp works ...".

DisjointedHunt 6y ago

Why can't comments on Hacker news follow etiquette of staying on topic? People here respond to the top comment directly with a point that's not even closely related to the top comment. And then everyone else follows. If you're making a new point that's not gaining from the chained comments feature or directly conversing/adding on to the person above you, just create a new comment.

kerng 6y ago

Didn't Facebook legally state they will NOT do this when acquiring WhatsApp- to me it sounds as this can be prohibited and daily fines with subsequent breakup should be in order. Sometimes I wish I had studied law...

asiando 6y ago
I only remember the founders publicly promising that WhatsApp won’t be absorbed into Facebook or something like that. I don’t know if they also put it in the legal documents.

Strs2FillMyDrms 6y ago

In my case the only annoying thing is when male friends ask me in person if I have an Instagram account, it may have pooped as a recommendation because of this, and I categorically deny it... they obviously know that it's just for the thirst, but I deny it nonetheless. I think Instagram has an option to not show your number and not to appear in recommendations, but I'm sure it doesn't work.

doubleorseven 6y ago

I've deleted my WhatsApp account 2 months ago even though I also live in a country where WhatsApp is mandatory. How am I doing so far: * I miss a lot of work stuff even though some update me on the important stuff through Signal. * I lost contact with friends I can't communicate with anymore. * I feel that I have more free time to focus on my family and close friends. Probably because my neighbors can't sneak into my head with things that don't really effect me. * The frequency I check my phone dropped by 80%. * Since I closed my instagram account and Facebook acount 8 years ago, I am now "Zuckerberg free". It's hard but It's Worth it.

renewiltord 6y ago

Honestly, all this is fine. So long as they don't scan the content - not because I care about that but because I act as if they have E2EE (which AFAIK from people I know at FB, they do) - I'm fine. After all, who I talk to isn't a big deal. I just don't want to be dragnetted into a drug bust because while I don't buy my drugs on WhatsApp I definitely discuss using them.

29083011397778 6y ago
Whatsapp is end-to-end encrypted. Google Drive backups are not. [1] Should the wrong person/people slip up, your messages are no longer end-to-end encrypted, and are stored on Google's servers [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/whatsapp-warns-free-google-drive-backups-are-not-encrypted/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/whatsapp-warns-free-google-dri...
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Oh that's a good point.

amelius 6y ago

We need telecommunication laws like we had in the old days. No messing with our data. And the ability to migrate to a different network.

gcblkjaidfj 6y ago

much better link https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25662215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25662215

utf_8x 6y ago

Once again - Signal[0] as an alternative. It's fully Open-Source (including the backend) and their crypto is public and independently verified[1][2][3]... [0] https://signal.org/en/ https://signal.org/en/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Encryption_p https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Encryption_p... [2] https://threatpost.com/signal-audit-reveals-protocol-cryptog https://threatpost.com/signal-audit-reveals-protocol-cryptog... [3] https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1013.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1013.pdf [PDF]

nalekberov 6y ago
Signal is not good enough either in the long run, because of its centralization. End-to-end encryption is sold as a bulletproof privacy solution, it might solve the most important element of privacy (having your messages not readable by others), in the end they have metadata stored in their end, your social graph, when you are online/offline etc. (there are others things i am sure) So giving your trust to another party just because they look “promising” does not work. Centralization is the source of all Evil.
- 7v3x3n3sem9vv 6y ago
  Look into how Signal operates, they really are different than the competition and continue to innovate engineering new ways to ensure they don't store any metadata on their servers. They've been subpoenaed before and the only information they could provide was the date a phone number registered and the last day it contacted their servers. That's it! I do agree that moving to another centralized service is not the optimal option, but seeing the amount of effort they put into ensuring all new features ensure your privacy instills a lot of confidence in their service. Long-term I'm personally rooting for either Element, Briar, or Session, but also realize they are not quite ready for mainstream and even when they are, they may be out of reach for grandma. in the short term I've migrated most of my family friends, including my grandma, to Signal and have had zero complaints. It works more or less like WhatsApp but pretty much guarantees your privacy, which I appreciate.
  - 6y ago

niqmk 6y ago

Welcome to facebook ads "showing relevant offers and ads across the Facebook Company Products;"

niqmk 6y ago

"showing relevant offers and ads across the Facebook Company Products;" Welcome to facebook ads