WhatsApp Still Planning Privacy Update that No One Understands

    WhatsApp is once again trying to reassure users that its privacy policy update will not let Facebook, its parent company, read users’ private chats. 

    After adding a feature that allows users to directly message businesses, WhatsApp changed its privacy policy on Jan. 6, in a terribly unclear rollout that caused confusion and frustration for many users, millions of whom decamped to other messaging services, such as Telegram and Signal. 

   When WhatsApp’s new privacy policy first required users to agree to allow Facebook servers to store their conversations, many users thought that Facebook, which bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, would have access to their private chats.

  WhatsApp, however, has stressed that users should not worry about the privacy of their chats  between individual users because those chats are always “end-to-end encrypted,” which means that they cannot be read by anyone outside the conversation.

   In January, WhatsApp pushed back the rollout of its privacy policy updates from February to May to give users more time to review the terms of its cryptic new privacy policy.

  In a blog post last week, WhatsApp said that it try to be clearer by placing within the app, a banner “providing more information that people can read at their own pace” and using its “Status” feature to share updates with users.

  “We’ll be doing much more to make our voice clear going forward,” the Thursday blog post said. “Eventually, we’ll start reminding people to review and accept these updates to keep using WhatsApp.”