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India court could stop Facebook’s WhatsApp mega-slurp

Stop Zuck’s data gulp

Facebook is facing legal action in India over its attempt to slurp up user data from WhatsApp users.

Two Indian students have gone to court in Delhi to demand Facebook reverses changes to WhatsApp’s privacy policy. The public-litigation case will be heard later this week, just before the new policy comes into effect.

The new settings would allow WhatsApp to share your account information with Facebook by default: "in order to improve [my] Facebook ads and products experiences".

The court has issued notices to Facebook and WhatsApp to provide documents detailing the changes, according to Bloomberg.

The change comes into force this weekend.

The students’ case states that WhatsApp claim of "user consent" is meaningless in the Indian context, where many of the messaging service’s 70 million users would be unable to read or understand the changes to its privacy policies.

This is just the latest challenge to the controversial changes – the US Federal Trade Commission, and the UK’s Information Commissioner have both said they would look critically at the data sharing.

Users are being encouraged to go into Account settings and untick the "Share my account info" button.

WhatsApp began life as something of a darling of the privacy-loving classes. It offered end-to-end encryption and famously said in a company blog that it rejected selling adverts with a quote from Fight Club: “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.”

The 2012 blog reminded users: “Remember, when advertising is involved you the user are the product.”

Facebook bought the messaging giant in 2014 for $19bn. ®

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