Facebook is thinking about a new feature that could scare a lot of WhatsApp users. And not only the: Minister Katarina Barley warn.
Menlo Park – Some Users had feared for a long time: Facebook could merge WhatsApp apparently, in the foreseeable future, with its Facebook-Messenger – or at least behind the Scenes. The project proposes to now even in waves up to the Federal Cabinet.
“If Facebook linked to the Messenger, is the attempt to create a monopoly,” warned Minister of justice Katarina Barley on Thursday in an Interview with the daily mirror. An Integration of the two services to throw “large antitrust and privacy law issues”, – stressed Barley in the conversation.
WhatsApp and Messenger “in the Background”: Facebook is apparently planning Large
The Background: Facebook wants to put together its Chat services such as WhatsApp and Messenger, according to media reports in the Background and stronger with encryption to secure. The Online network of the New York Times and the Financial Times had confirmed a few days ago, at least, that there are Considerations in this direction. “We are working more and more of our Messaging services with end-to-end encryption, and examine ways to friends and family across the borders of different networks easier to make accessible,” said a spokesman for the Newspapers. Currently there are internal discussions about how best to proceed.
The users are to be offered pursuant to the plans, while still different Apps – the applications would run on a common technical infrastructure, wrote to the two Newspapers late on Friday, citing the person Involved. So far, the systems are largely separate from each other.
Facebook-new feature: Will also be Instagram affected?
On the common technical platform according to the Reports, in addition to WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, the communication function of the photo service Instagram. In the future, you could send then you may receive a message, for example, directly from Instagram to WhatsApp.
Also interesting: Hardly anybody knows who she is – WhatsApp has a new feature that many
The plan will be driven by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, it said. The founders of WhatsApp and Instagram, which were able to operate after the Acquisition by Facebook, initially largely independent, had to leave for the past year, all of the Online network. According to contemporary Reports, it is said to have tensions with Zuckerberg, the stronger in the leadership of the services engagement.
The three services each have more than a billion users. Facebook as an Online network to more than 2.2 billion active members – the growth had recently slowed significantly, while the chat services active and used.
end-to-end encryption WhatsApp, a encounters with U.S. authorities, there is little love
The end-to-end encryption, where only the interlocutors have access to the contents of a conversation, is currently in the Facebook-world by default. The Facebook Messenger, you can add them to the exchange of confidential information.
Upon retirement, the WhatsApp founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum, it was mentioned, you could have been against plans to weaken the encryption. The end-to-end encryption – the other Chat services like Signal, a Wire, or Apple’s iMessage, by default, use – puffs at the same time, in the case of security agencies such as the US Federal police FBI to resistance, because they have to get worse to the news of Suspects.
Ex-Manager speaks of a planned “Whatstabook” – should be tapped more data?
A former Facebook Manager, the Financial Times said, Zuckerberg wool combine various services of the group to a kind of “Whatstabook”, in order to stimulate growth. While the encryption would improve the protection of data, whether the true purpose of Facebook, presumably, more contact details, to find potential new users, he explained.
read More? the New allegations of Spying on Facebook mobile phone numbers of the User?
A common infrastructure would mean a profound intervention in the current functioning of the affected services. So WhatsApp is designed from the beginning to the recording of less user data and only requires the phone number of the smartphone. In the case of Facebook, the Facebook Messenger and Instagram, in contrast, users create Accounts.
new feature would also busting Facebook’s hamper
One of the promises in the Acquisition of WhatsApp for at the end of 22 billion dollars in the year 2014 was that the user data is separated. A few years later, Facebook announced that they wanted to reconcile the numbers between WhatsApp and Facebook. This would allow, for example, to find a WhatsApp user in Facebook. The idea met with resistance from privacy advocates and has been exposed to in Europe. The EU Commission is plated Facebook in 2017, with a penalty of EUR 110 million, because the Online network had claimed at the time of registration of the Takeover, a Share of the data between the two systems is technically not possible.
A consolidation of the technical infrastructure behind the Chat features at the same time would complicate a break-up of Facebook. The policy claims to come, especially since the data scandal Cambridge Analytica again and again, Facebook had to be forced to separate from the Messaging services. The democratic U.S. Congressman Ro Khanna, according to the media stressed the report, the Acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp had to be examined by competition law is much harder. “Imagine how different the world would look like if Facebook had to compete with WhatsApp and Instagram,” he wrote on Twitter.
Facebook tries to set the policy to change his mind. Managing Director, Sheryl Sandberg was on a Tour in Europe, and led to, among other things, to the world economic forum in Davos. Zuckerberg Facebook’s business model, defended on Friday in a guest article in the Wall Street Journal, which is read in political Washington.
also read: WhatsApp Update can have dire consequences for the User have – Which you should do now
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