Opt Out…While You Can
By: Sean Conley
Tags: Facebook, Messaging, WhatsApp

Opt Out…While You Can

In a blog entry posted today with the misleadingly innocuous but I suppose technically accurate title “Looking ahead for WhatsApp,” the company explains that they intend to begin “coordinating more with Facebook.” This includes sharing your phone number with Facebook in order to better tailor ads to you. Since there is no possible way this can be good for us, the users, it’s time to opt out.

If you’ve never used WhatsApp, it’s essentially a free messaging service that is tied to your phone number. Since it uses data, WhatsApp blossomed in the days when text messages were metered at absurd rates by the wireless telcos. And though one could argue that iMessage, Snapchat, and a bevy of others have made it less relevant over time, WhatsApp still boasts more than 1 billion monthly active users and 40+ billion messages exchanged daily. The service is particularly popular abroad, with large percentages of users in Latin America, Africa, and Europe. (In the US, Facebook Messenger is more popular; in Asia, WeChat rules the roost.)

Facebook bought WhatsApp back in 2014 for a whopping $19 billion, and has left it relatively undisturbed in the interim. They even dropped the previous $1/year fee, opening it up to everyone in the world at no cost. But the free ride, as they all eventually do, has now come to an end. Though WhatsApp had previously pledged not to show ads — going as far as to invoke the violent anticonsumerism of Fight Club (1999) — the corporate ethos there seems to have changed in the wake of being gobbled up by Facebook. Given the vague language of the post, I’m not really sure whether or how they intend to show ads within WhatsApp, but it wouldn’t surprise me if ads start popping up sometime soon.

What is very clear is that WhatsApp is going to share its users’ phone numbers with Facebook, and “connect” their two accounts, in order to “show [users] more relevant ads.” Cue some well-deserved eye rolls. I frankly do not give a damn about the relevancy of the legion of ads that are crammed down my throat every day. In fact, modern digital advertising creeps me out so much that I use an ad blocker, AdGuard, to limit these companies’ ability to track me online. I recommend that you do the same.

You should also be sure to opt out of this proposed WhatsApp-Facebook integration while there’s still time. The process for doing so is nothing less than surreal. You need to uncheck a box (which is, of course, checked by default) indicating that you want your number shared. But that box only appears once, and only then if you ignore a giant, green button marked “ACCEPT” and instead choose a small, nondescript link at the bottom to “Read more.” Once you’ve done that, you need to uncheck a box to “Share my WhatsApp account information with Facebook.” If you, like most people, already passed this screen, you can go to Settings > Account > Share my account info and uncheck the relevant box. But be aware that, for no legitimate reason whatsoever, you only have 30 days to do this from the time you first hit the ACCEPT button.

Since no sane person would choose to read hundreds of pages of legal gobbledygook just for fun, this is clearly Facebook’s veiled attempt to opt us all into something very few of us would knowingly choose. Obfuscating and time-limiting the opt-out mechanism is a disgrace, plain and simple. And it shows you exactly the level of respect Facebook (and by extension, WhatsApp) have for you and your privacy.

If you use WhatsApp, fire it up and opt out of this nonsense. Or better yet, switch to Signal or another app that protects your privacy. Because something tells me that we shouldn’t expect these foxes to do any better guarding the henhouse in the future.