The change in the personal data policy of the messaging illustrates the desire to monetize the subsidiary of the social network and is controversial

WhatsApp is well known to families for keeping in touch, teens to chat while playing online without exhausting their phone plan, colleagues to communicate securely and French, Indian or Brazilian citizens to easily exchange photos or videos. But, since the announcement, on January 6, of its new personal data policy, messaging has been singled out for an aspect less often highlighted: its link with Facebook and its efforts to make the platform profitable.

It's little to say that the message asking WhatsApp users to accept the new clauses before February 8 elicited negative reactions. Some felt that the app, known for its encrypted messages and privacy, had decided to share all its data with Facebook, the targeted advertising giant that bought it in 2014. Moreover, the case has boosted signal downloads, encouraged by a Tweet from Tesla founder Elon Musk, touting this competing messaging. However, Signal was created in 2018 by WhatsApp founder Brian Acton, who slammed facebook's  door for disagreeing on the "monetization" strategy.

Since then, Facebook has worked to put out the fire by assuring that its announcement was misunderstood. "The update of our policy has no impact on the privacy of your messages with your friends or family," the company insisted. WhatsApp still doesn't know the content of your messages and private calls, doesn't keep a list of your contacts, and doesn't share your contacts with Facebook. The only change concerns "sending messages to a company": if you communicate on WhatsApp with a company, the content of these exchanges, as well as your possible purchases, may be used, in particular to personalize advertisements on Facebook or Instagram.

Unified ecosystem

If the change is limited, it is also because in reality WhatsApp already shares information with Facebook since 2016: your phone number, your time of use, your device ... Is much more than WhatsApp at its origins or Signal.

Despite the controversy, Facebook wants to be serene: the week following the announcement, Signal, which had about twenty million users according to App Annie, was downloaded 8.8 million times, according to the sensor Tower research institute. Its competitor Telegram, popular with Trump supporters banned from social networks, has been installed 11.9 million times. True, the number of WhatsApp downloads fell by 4%, but it remained at 9.7 million. And the network has a total of 2 billion users...

The case highlights Facebook's  desire to make WhatsApp profitable. The company had virtually no income when it bought out for $19 billion. And its $1-a-year subscription for heavy users was dropped by Facebook in 2016. But, since 2019, Mark Zuckerberg has been looking to integrate it, with Facebook and Instagram, into an ecosystem unified by a compatible messaging. For SMEs, Facebook and Instagram will remain vectors of advertising and WhatsApp will sell customer relationship services, under the name of WhatsApp Business: sending messages, exhibition of catalogs, online sales... " Facebook and Instagram are the showcases, WhatsApp is the cashier", summed up one of WhatsApp executives, Matt Idema, to Forbes. Thus, 175 million users would send messages to a WhatsApp Business account every day.

At the end of 2020, Facebook also bought Kustomer, a start-up specializing in customer relations and after-sales service, for $1 billion. And created Facebook Shop, so that merchants put their catalog online. Another project: payment. Novi, the electronic wallet of the digital currency diem (ex-libra), launched by Facebook, will be integrated into in-house networks. And online payment has been allowed in India on WhatsApp, which also targets Brazil. And all emerging countries.

"WhatsApp could become a pillar of Facebook's economic strategy, if the group does it right. The platform could bring other layers of services to SMEs, which are the group's first advertisers," said jefferies financial analyst Brent Thill, for whom the recent controversy would be "just a small bump in the road".

Facebook will still have to confront the authorities, especially in the United States, where two antitrust complaints accuse it of having bought WhatsApp and Instagram to eliminate competitors. Threatened with dismantling, Facebook retorts that the authorities had authorized these takeovers. But, anti-monopoly lawyer Lina Khan said on Twitter , Zuckerberg promised "not to change anything about the way WhatsApp uses data." His recent announcement is a "huge arm of honor to the antitrust authorities," tweeted Roger McNamee, an investor critical of the social network. In the eyes of the judges, the integration of WhatsApp into the world of Facebook could be an obstacle to a dismantling. Or a provocation.