Stop WhatsApp From Sharing Data With Facebook

Facebook purchased WhatsApp some years back. Facebook is also known for changing, often revamping itself and also everything in its portfolio. You can take the changes that have been going on in Instagram as an example. Uncharacteristically, Facebook left WhatsApp alone for the most part. New features were introduced but none of the features were tied to the app as a Facebook-owned product. The change, inevitable as it was, is finally here.

WhatsApp will now start to share your data with Facebook to serve users better ads. I know most people will find this feature annoying. But, before you hurry to uninstall the app, you should know there is a very simple and easy way to disable this feature. The news that WhatsApp will start sharing data has been publicized so much, also the fact that you can opt out of it has more or less been lost. See how to opt out.

Open your WhatsApp and it will immediately tell you it has updated its terms of service and privacy policy. Just tap on the “Agree” button to agree to its new terms, or you can as well defer giving it your consent by tapping on the “Not Now” button. It might seem as though you don’t really have a choice in the matter and still have to just agree to the new terms but this isn’t the case now.

Tap on the “Read more about key updates…” section and you will automatically be taken to the Terms and Privacy Policy screen. In this section, you can turn Off data sharing Off.

If you mistakenly dismissed the prompt, you can still opt-out of it by going to Settings>>Account and turning the “Share my account info” option to Off. This option will not appear in the Account section if you’ve already opted out when you were first prompted about it so it’s very likely that you can’t enable this option in the future. It’s also a possible change that needs the next app version to be released so you can be able to change it outside of the prompt. Although, the good thing is that you are not being forced to choose between using a chat app and keeping your conversations private.