29% Of WhatsApp Users In India Set To Ditch App Due To New Terms And Conditions
Updating the instant messaging app’s terms and conditions on the 1st of January 2021 was probably the worst thing the Facebook-owned company did since its inception.
Users are not happy about the ultimatum given on the new terms that warned them that not hitting the agree button would leave them without access to the app.
Thousands have already left the messaging app and joined rival chat apps like Signal and Telegram, reports say.
More bleeding has been noticed in the app’s biggest market – India.
Stats show that India is by far the biggest market for the company with over 340 million users.
The same stats have also shown that users have started ditching the app in small but costly numbers.
76 per cent of users surveyed by CyberMedia Research (CMR) from the country indicated that they were considering leaving WhatsApp for other applications.
The situation there was worsened by the country’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology which recently issued a statement saying the “unilateral changes are not fair and acceptable,” further sending users into panic mode.
Of the 76 per cent studied, 29 per cent made assurance they were definitely leaving WhatsApp totally once the new terms come into effect in May.
This, while 51 per cent of the study said they would continue using the application with the new terms, but with limited use, since they will also be using the app’s rivals – Signal and Telegram.
Since WhatsApp realised its blunder, it has been on hard force to calm the growing fears about the policies.
They recently published on their blog that the app will continue with its end to end encryption and content shared between users will not be shared with Facebook or anyone outside chats.
“WhatsApp was built on a simple idea: what you share with friends and family stays between you. This means we will always protect your personal conversations with end-to-end encryption so that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see these private messages. Its why we don’t keep logs of who everyone’s messaging or calling. We also cant see your shared location and we don’t share your contacts with Facebook. With these updates, none of that is changing,” reads WhatsApp’s blog statement regarding the new terms and conditions.
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