WhatsApp Won't Comply With India's Order To Delete User Data (engadget.com) 79
An anonymous reader shares an Engadget report: WhatsApp's decision to share user data with Facebook has provoked the ire of yet another foreign government. Last week, India's Delhi High Court ordered WhatsApp to delete any data collected from users who opted out of the company's new privacy policy before September 25th. According to Mashable, however, WhatsApp has no plan to comply with the court order and it will have "no impact on the planned policy and terms of service updates." In August, privacy groups in the US spoke out against the change, which allows WhatsApp to pass account information like mobile phone number, contacts, profile pictures and status messages to its parent company. Facebook claims that sharing information between the two will help it to improve the experience and fight abuse across both platforms, while WhatsApp defended the change by saying that all messages on the service will remain encrypted.
Too big to comply (Score:4, Insightful)
Whatcha gonna do about it? Block Facebook? bwahahahaha, we are corporations... we are above the law!
Re:Too big to comply (Score:5, Interesting)
Considering that many corporations have outsourced their support (customer and internal IT) to India it's a very risky thing to annoy the government of India because they can decide to cut all network communication and then a lot of major corporations will hit the crapper.
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Agree It's not a smart move to alienate the government of one of your largest user and support bases. India could simply block facebook and whatsapp.
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Any government that gets in the way of American business doesn't last very long. Let's not forget what the state really serves. Their power is acquired through force or by farce. I generally prefer the farcical route. The whole world should be like Vegas, and we have the might to make it so. We shouldn't waste the opportunity. That's why I say, Trump for President!
Heh, those "3am phone calls"? That'll be him calling Hillary, kinda like every president since Nixon calling Kissinger, or Brzezinski...
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I would use the old "and nothing of value would be lost" cliche. But seriously, that doesn't even begin to cover it. I've found outsourced tier-1 support to actually be *worse* than useless over the years. Basically, aside from processing returns for outright defective kit, if you can't immediately get escalated to a tier that's not outsourced, or unless you have an on-site contract, you're better off just going to Stackexchange or similar.
Let them so we can move the jobs back to usa (Score:4, Insightful)
Let them so we can move the jobs back to usa when india get's cut off.
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If India's jobs got cut they will move to the Philippines or Nigeria. They won't come back to the US.
Only once it is cheaper to use labour in the US than any other country will the jobs come back.
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Law? The government of India is trying to tell an American company what to do.
They have no more jurisdiction over WhatsApp than the North Korean government has over me. And that's a good thing.
They're perfectly entitled to tell Facebook what WhatsApp can do when it is operating in India. Just like the Kim administration could decide to feed you to the dogs, like he did his uncle, if you were to step foot in North Korea.
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Great. But does WhatsApp have operations or infrastructure in India? Does it even operate a subsidiary there? Honestly, that's not rhetorical. I don't know. But if not, then this is an overreach that should bloody well be considered intolerable by all. Various countries trying to export their will and laws beyond their own border is an increasing problem, and it needs to come to a stop. And I'm not exempting the US in that either. It's no less disgusting when we do it than when India, Brazil, or Fra
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You sound like someone that doesn't know the control of the internetz will be turned over to a global consortium from the UN yet.
Overreach is about to get way way worse.
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Are you trolling, or terminally fucked in the head ?
India are telling a US company how to act in India.
Just like the US tells foreign companies how to act when dealing in the US.
So yes, they do have jurisdiction over what WhatsApp does in India... and that is a good thing.
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Just like the US tells foreign companies how to act when dealing in the US.
*everywhere.
FTFY
The US, Russia and China are most likely to do this. Oddly, China is most capitalistic in its dealing with foreign countries, preferring to invest in them as a way of controlling them. Russia uses both trade embargoes and, for its close neighbours, military threats. The US is the country most likely to use military threat.
Remember, all that "ra ra capitalism" is to make up for the US not being very capitalist, just like any country calling itself "democatic people's republic" was likely to b
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Just like that quote "American aggressor interferes with Soviet Union's internal matters on the whole world.".
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Yes, they have jurisdiction within India and can, maybe*, prevent their citizens from using those apps but if Facebook maintains no infrastructure or direct employees in India, then no, they cannot tell Facebook how its code operating on processors not in India must function.
*It all depends on what guarantees the constitution of India says about their citizens rights to access information and how it has been interpreted by their courts.
I just love how everyone gets all giddy when the government of one count
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Re:Too big to comply (Score:5, Informative)
Blocking won't work, but fines will hit Facebook where it hurts. They conduct business in India, have infrastructure and offices there so there's plenty of property on the line if Facebook tried to decline to pay. If you're the second most populous country in the world (almost tied for the first place), ignoring you is not a good idea. Perhaps the average customer in India is nowhere as rich as in the western world, but that's no African hellhole either.
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Facebook advertising is big in India. I'm sure the government can fuck that up pretty well if they don't comply.
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Whatcha gonna do about it? Block Facebook?
yes, why not? India is a market of 1.3Billion people, about 17.5% of the worlds population. Not a market you want to just walk away from.
If this turns into a pissing contest, Facebook will lose.
Facebook cannot count on the public opinion, the government is 'protecting the people' so it is a high risk bet with very high stakes.
Buying some officials may be the best option, but that won't work in a high profile case that becomes politically sensitive.
They have one doubt (Score:5, Funny)
They have one doubt about the needful?
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Which is part of F^HZuckerberg's M.O.; from another recent story:
“You have one identity,” he emphasized three times in a single interview with David Kirkpatrick in his book, “The Facebook Effect [amazon.com].” “The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly.” He adds: “Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.”
(The rest of his M.O. is his whole privacy is dead garbage.)
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Having two (or more) identities is a sign of me exercising my right to be called / referred to by whatever I want, not some corporate. My official identity is used by government, my other identities are used by me variously in real life and online. There is some crossover, but they are independent and discrete, just the way I like it.
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Fortunately, we also have the right to call you whatever we want as well.
What about EU users (Score:5, Insightful)
The rules in the EU are pretty clear, this is simply not allowed, not before or after any updated terms of service. Google was already forced to stop trying to unify Youtube and Google Plus accounts, so if they can force Google to not do it, I am sure Facebook will be in deep shit too.
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Germany already took action over the Facebook-WhatsApp data sharing, and probably won't be the last EU member state to do so.
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Germany already took action over the Facebook-WhatsApp data sharing, and probably won't be the last EU member state to do so.
Good luck blocking it in their country when Whatsapp gives them the middle finger.
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Germany has no issue blocking non compliant services. Seems like the middle finger is on WhatsApp. Plus ze Germans are very against the TPP so good luck with enforcing and US based "business" "rules" on them.
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Is that some sort of misplaced arrogance, or do you really not understand how easy blocking WhatsApp/Facebook would be if the German authorities wanted to do it?
People write as if the Internet is some huge network that everyone has unlimited access to, but guess what? It's not. You have an ISP, and somewhere up the line they are hooked in to a relatively small number of pipes in and out of any given country, and those pipes are controlled by a major infrastructure provider that isn't going to argue with the
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Germany recently told Facebook to stop using data from other services too.
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Or even better- use regular text messaging, comes with every phone, is free on most networks, and doesn't use any of your 4g data allotment. Never seen the attraction to WhatsApp.
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I'm not sure how that is an advantage since on most networks it doesn't count against your 4G usage and is free anyway. The only people who that would be an advantage for are people who live in the middle of nowhere that doesn't get cellphone coverage- or people on some strange plan that doesn't give you free texting (do any still exist?)
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Fortunately the fork Silence is.
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From their own FAQ:
Signal users can
privately message other Signal users for free over the internet
send insecure SMS/MMS to contacts, which incurs costs as set by mobile plans
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For most people cell phone service coverage is more pervasive than wi-fi network availability.
I can't drive down the highway and connect to a wi-fi network.
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SMS works without a data connection. WhatsApp does not.
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Group chat
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And sms is too easily spied on by the Erdogan junta. With the current repression and which hunt in Turkey I would not trust it much.
Re:Goodbye (Score:5, Informative)
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Whatsapp allows you to message worldwide with other whats app users, as well as calling without cost as long as you are on wifi. It has a been a boon to those of us with family and friends in other countries. It allows for communication across different networks.
You know there's a thousand of other messaging apps out there with the same features? Hangouts, Skype, Kik, Wechat, Telegram, Viber etc all do it without needing a FB tie-in.
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That's because in MOST countries sms are NOT free (and MMS certainly isn't if you want to include pictures). Besides, sms is easily spied uppon by all governments unless you use the Signal fork Silence that encrypts sms messages. At least with WhatsApp, they can't read the content.
Easy (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:3)
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whats app has over 1 billion users, that is 1 billion sets of eyes for ad and revenue targeting. You can make your own version of WhatsApp but you can't get a billion users in a timeframe that would make you competitive.
You can if you have 1.2Billion people in your country and you control the borders. Maybe not India because it's a democracy, but China did just that with WeChat. Zero to 1 billion users in under 5 years.
WhatsApp "reverts back" saying it will comply (Score:5, Informative)
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