Agree to terms or face limited functions: WhatsApp

Agree to terms or face limited functions: WhatsApp

Pankaj.Doval@timesgroup.com

NewDelhi:11.05.2021 

You won’t be tablet o access your chat list on WhatsApp and may have “limited functionality” on the country’s biggest messaging platform if you do not accept the Facebook-owned messenger’s latest privacy policy, the company said on Monday despite strong reservations expressed by the government, the Supreme Court, and the Competition Commission of India.

While WhatsApp – which has over 53 crore users in India --says that the scale-down of services will not happen immediately for those who do not accept update to the new policy by May15, the downgrade will happen subsequently when a user does not pay heed to repeated reminders from the company.

While the company has made clear that it will not delete the accounts of those who continue to ignore the controversial privacy policy (that have received flak across the world as the update seeks to share business communication of WhatsApp users with Facebook), it has now made it clear that things may not be the same anymore.

Through a blog post/advisory on its website, the company answers the crucial question of ‘What happens after I receive a persistent reminder (to update)?’, “At that time, you’ll encounter limited functionality on WhatsApp until you accept the updates… You won’t be able to access your chat list, but you can still answer incoming phone and video calls. If you have notifications enabled, you can tap on them to read or respond to a message or call back a missed phone or video call.”

Further, after a few weeks of limited functionality, “you won’t be able to receive incoming calls or notifications and WhatsApp will stop sending messages and calls to your phone.”