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EU consumer group lodges complaint against WhatsApp
The European Consumer Organisation and eight of its member groups have submitted a formal complaint against Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp to the EU Commission and the European network of consumer authorities.
The complaint concerns WhatsApp’s new terms of service as users received repeated messages and had their use of the app limited until they accepted the new terms. The feature rolled out in May.
The complaint states that WhatsApp is pushing users to accept the updated policy, and the opacity of the new terms.
According to the complaint, the persistence and ambiguity of the policy themselves constitute breaches of EU consumer law, regardless of the effects of the policy.
Announcing the submission of the complaint, the BEUC’s director general Monique Goyens said, “WhatsApp has been bombarding users for months with aggressive and persistent pop-up messages to force them to accept its new terms of use and privacy policy. They’ve been telling users that their access to their app will be cut off if they do not accept the new terms.
In January, the company said that the new terms would not expand the amount of data it shares with Facebook, which acquired the service in 2014 for more than $19bn.
The new complaint also acknowledges that the WhatsApp update is being investigated by the European Data Protection Board, following a case taken by the data protection commissioner in Hamburg, Germany in May.
In addition, roll-out of the messaging service’s new privacy policy has been put on hold in India.
On the other hand, WhatsApp has yet to publicly comment on the BEUC complaint.
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