As corporate statements in this digital-first data hungry advertising environment go, WhatsApp’s reassuringly smug media primer, “remember, when advertising is involved, you the user are the end product”, was always likely to come back to bite.

Published by the free messaging app in 2012 in a blog post entitled “Why we don’t sell ads”, its advertising-free “hey we won’t sell out to the man” ambitions were lofty. And then, last Thursday, WhatsApp users learned there is no such thing as a free phone call: the company announced it is to share user data with its parent company, Facebook.

In a change to its terms and conditions WhatsApp quietly told its billion-plus users they have just 30 days to opt out before their phone numbers, online status and other information such as, for example, their software choice, will be handed over to Facebook. The social network with its 1.7 billion users, which has long been trying to winkle phone number and address books out of its own users, will then use WhatsApp numbers to improve its “friend suggestions” – which might sound vaguely friendly but more importantly it’s to offer better targeting to its advertising.

The new terms and conditions invite users to “Share my WhatsApp account information with Facebook to improve my Facebook ads and products experiences”.

WhatsApp, which has been admirably uncluttered in terms of advertising, says the change will not mean that banner ads will be appearing on its platform – so technically it will still not carry advertising – but that the “move will explore ways for you to communicate with businesses that matter to you”, a curious inversion of the dynamic of what happens in the real world of marketing communications where it’s not so much you that sets out to communicate with businesses but vice versa.

Encrypted

The messages sent by WhatsApp users will still be encrypted end-to-end, meaning neither social media giants will be reading them so there is, so far anyway, no chance that the contents of a message might be data-mined and targeted by advertisers: that WhatsApp message you had with your friend wondering about the best drill to buy won’t result in a bombardment of ads for home improvement gadgets on your Facebook feed.

The new change, though, will permit business accounts who currently communicate through SMS, such as airlines advising of delayed flight or banks notifying of large withdrawals to communicate via WhatsApp – a move that users may fear will herald a slow drip, drip of advertising, or spam, into the app.

That Facebook should seek to leverage the WhatsApp user base for advertising purposes is hardly surprising. The company bought the mobile messaging service for $19 billion (€17 billion) in 2014 and while at the time WhatsApp said there would be no significant changes to its terms and conditions that seemed unlikely given the enormous number of customers and their data it was bringing the table.

While WhatsApp customers can opt out from their information being used for ad targeting by Facebook – by unticking the data sharing box having scrolled down the very many pages of terms and conditions – they will not be able to stop their data being shared by WhatsApp to its owner Facebook.

Bone of contention

The fact that users have to actively opt out (as opposed to the more transparent consumer-friendly opt-in mode) is already a bone of contention as are the obvious data protection issues that arise with such a transfer of personal information – suddenly WhatsApp which publicly prided itself on its emphasis on privacy doesn’t seem so private anymore.

With 25 days to go, it is difficult to gauge how many WhatsApp users will seek to limit the use of their data by Facebook for advertising purposes by opting out, or how many will delete the free app and change over to one of its competitors such as Telegram. Or, as is most likely, will passively accept that as Facebook has so much information on them anyway, it may as well have their numbers.

Last year, media planning agency MediaVest in a survey of 1,000 Irish online users found that while a vast majority said they were concerned about privacy issues in the online space, only 15 per cent could be bothered to even read the terms and conditions. Inertia is the advertiser’s friend.