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Business News › Prime › Tech › Signal and Telegram pose a privacy question for WhatsApp. Does this affect its big plans for India?

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TECH AND GADGETS

Signal and Telegram pose a privacy

question for hatsApp. Does this
a ect its big plans for India?
Moxie Marlinspike, CEO, Signal Messenger LLC; Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook; Pavel Durov, founder, Telegram

Synopsis

WhatsApp is battling rough seas, tackling questions over its commitment to protect user data after its updated privacy
policy. The knives are out, and globally Big Tech is pointing ngers at each other. In India — the biggest market for
WhatsApp — Signal and Telegram have planted their foot in the door. Can WhatsApp retain its turf?

The war of words over who cares more about your BACK TO TOP

privacy is on, and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook,

Home Budget 2021 isn’t in the mood to let up.
ETPrime Markets News Industry RISE Politics Wealth MF Tech Opinion NRI Panache ET NOW More

On Facebook’s rst earnings call of the year on January

28, Zuckerberg took potshots at Apple, once again, on
privacy. “We have a lot of competitors who make
BY

Sandhya Sharma
claims about privacy that are often misleading. Apple 11 MINS READ
recently released so-called nutrition labels which Jan 29, 2021, 11:41 AM IST

focus largely on metadata that apps collect rather than

the privacy and security of people's actual messages,”
Share This Article
he said.

“But iMessage stores non-end-to-end encrypted

backups of your messages by default unless you
1
disable iCloud, so Apple and governments have the
ability to access most people’s messages. So when it
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comes to what matters the most — protecting people’s

messages, I think that hatsApp is clearly superior,”
Zuckerberg added.

But is WhatsApp really superior to its rivals in

protecting user privacy?

It has become hard to judge, especially after WhatsApp

rolled out a communication on its privacy policy
update earlier this month on January 4, 2021. In India,
the debate is playing out in a more tangible manner.

Users have time until May 15, 2021, to accept or reject

its new norms. Moreover, there is no option to opt out.
Given WhatsApp’s popularity across India, it will be
hard for many of its users to make a decision.

Meanwhile, Signal and Telegram have planted their

foot in the door.

WhatsApp has seen its not-so-popular global

competitors, Signal and Telegram, gaining popularity
in India in terms of downloads in the past few weeks
— thanks to the policy update.

BACK TO TOP
Home Budget 2021 The signi cance of the percentage of app-downloads of
ETPrime Markets News Industry RISE Politics Wealth MF Tech Opinion NRI Panache ET NOW More

Signal and Telegram, with respect to WhatsApp’s,

should be a cause of concern for its parent Facebook as
its download numbers in India turned negative.

Data culled out by ET Prime through Sensor Tower, an

app-intelligence rm in California, clearly speaks
volumes about this shift. Sensor Tower’s mobile
insight strategist for EMEA, Craig Chappel, tells ET
Prime, “India is the clear driving force behind the
surge in downloads (of Signal and Telegram) that we
have seen.”

Industry observers, however, have called these

downloads temporary and predicted that it won’t
disturb WhatsApp’s business plans in India.

But the rst dent has already raised eyebrows.

Can Signal and Telegram replicate hatsApp’s feat?

Signal did an aggressive outreach in India to ensure
that it clearly communicated how it is di erent from
WhatsApp and even Telegram.

"Signal wants you to own your

own data. e will never have
ads, trackers, and analytics, nor
will we ever collect any user
data."
— Aruna Harder, COO, Signal Messenger

Interestingly, WhatsApp’s former co-founder, Brian

Acton, is currently Signal’s co-founder.

Acton along with Moxie Marlinspike — founded

Signal Foundation — a non-pro t organisation
dedicated to doing foundational work to make private
communication accessible, secure, and ubiquitous.
Signal is also open-source.

Speaking exclusively to ET Prime Aruna Harder, COO

Signal Messenger defended the product.

Interestingly, Harder did not comment on ET Prime’s BACK TO TOP

question on India’s pending Personal Data Protection

Home Budget 2021 (PDP) Bill that speaks about users’ privacy.
ETPrime Markets News Industry RISE Politics Wealth MF Tech Opinion NRI Panache ET NOW More

Odd, in our opinion, given it was all in the limelight for

personal data protection of Indians.

It seems Signal doesn’t want to get embroiled in the

controversial PDP bill for now and is aiming to get its
user base up to speed and India is a crucial market for
Signal purely because it has numbers.

“If Signal and Telegram are able to ride this wave and
continue generating signi cant installs, then these
apps can obtain a serious market share that sticks for
the long-term. The challenge they have is obtaining
critical mass, as to compete, all of your friends and
family need to be on these apps,” Chappel points out.

Signal was quick to make its user experience better.

It is aiming
" hatsApp’s privacy policy in to bring out
beginning 2016 allowed for a range of
product
data-sharing with Facebook by
default. It allowed users to opt-
out of data-sharing with
Facebook, but this was not
widely known or used.
hatsApp is end-to-end
encrypted but Facebook is not."
— Martin Sheldon, principal researcher, Freedom
of the Press Foundation

improvements like stickers, wallpaper among other

things that amuse the Indian user and are also a USP
of WhatsApp.

Signal is aiming to build its product right for India so

that it is built right for the world.

At the same time, Telegram, which was quite popular

with Indians after WhatsApp has not seen enough
uptick in the country in comparison to Signal, has a
range of features that keep Indians logged in.
BACK TO TOP

But the fact that Signal is open source has got some
Home Budget 2021 privacy experts vouching for it.
ETPrime Markets News Industry RISE Politics Wealth MF Tech Opinion NRI Panache ET NOW More

Protocol talk
Interestingly, WhatsApp also runs on Signal’s protocol,
however, it gives an option to users to store data on
cloud unlike Signal.

Signal’s chats are stored on the phone, whereas,

Telegram is not an end-to-end encrypted app by
default.

Privacy experts ET Prime spoke with point out that

while messages are end-to-end encrypted when they
are sent, but if WhatsApp’s option to back up chat
history on Apple or Google Cloud is used, that data is
not protected by the promise of end-to-end encryption.

Talking to ET Prime, Martin Sheldon, principal

researcher, working on privacy and encryption at US-
based Freedom of the Press Foundation says,
“WhatsApp’s privacy policy in beginning 2016 allowed
for data-sharing with Facebook by default. It allowed
users to opt-out of data-sharing with Facebook, but
this was not widely known or used.”

He says that WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted but

Facebook is not.

Facebook’s messenger has an optional “secret

conversation” mode which is end-to-end encrypted,
says Sheldon while dissecting the encryption rules in
the two Facebook properties.

Here’s a look at some popular end-to-end encrypted

messaging apps and how they stand at protecting its
users’ privacy.

BACK TO TOP
Home Budget 2021 ETPrime Markets News Industry RISE Politics Wealth MF Tech Opinion NRI Panache ET NOW More

Decoding hatsApp’s privacy policy

Mark Zuckerberg rates WhatsApp superior to Apple’s
iMessage in protecting privacy. But is it really so?
Moreover, what about India, where there’s a change in
the rules of engagement?

ET Prime reached out to a lawyer to dissect the privacy

policy and what it meant so as to decode the reason
behind this furore.

These are the insights that the expert shared on eight

contentious issues:

1.WhatsApp pop-up on screens — If somebody wants

to use WhatsApp after February 8, 2021, they should
accept the new privacy policy. Date to accept the policy
has been extended May 15, 2021.
E pert’s view: Yes, it's up to individuals to decide to
use WhatsApp. WhatsApp's privacy policy clearly
states it will be sharing business pro les’ data. The
company is not giving an option to opt-out of the
updated privacy policy so far.

2.WhatsApp collects/processes WhatsApp Pay details

and not other payment details.
E pert’s view: This is ne, ideally. If users are okay
with the policy update then only WhatsApp Pay data is
impacted. At the same time, WhatsApp Pay has its own
privacy policy and can be challenged separately for a
data breach. As per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI),
payment data has to be stored in India. BACK TO TOP
Home Budget 2021 3.Use an in-house app to delete WhatsApp for clean
ETPrime Markets News Industry RISE Politics Wealth MF Tech Opinion NRI Panache ET NOW More

delete. Else, data retention may be longer.

E pert’s view: This is ideal as an in-house app knows
exactly what to delete.

4.Data may be shared with third parties for business

reasons, if one interacts with a business account.
E pert’s view: This may be a cause for concern if
anybody has a business account on the group. Sharing
one-to-one conversations with business account
should be ne.

5. Location data is processed even if location services

are o .
E pert’s view: This is also a cause for concern as it
leads to surveillance. Google already does this through
Google Maps and others services/apps.

6. WhatsApp data is stored in the same data centres

where Facebook data is stored.
E pert’s view: It’s an internal decision of the company
and could impact how the data sharing will be done
between Facebook and WhatsApp in the days to come.

7. WhatsApp collects all information about the mobile

phone, phone number, service provider, model,
operating system version, battery level, IP address
(even if your location service is o ).
E pert’s view: This is a matter of concern as there’s
nothing left to collect and almost everything is
collected here to do user’s pro ling. Even though
WhatsApp says your location is not tracked, by
BACK TO TOP
tracking your IP address it clearly gives out your
current location.
Home Budget 2021 ETPrime Markets News Industry RISE Politics Wealth MF Tech Opinion NRI Panache ET NOW More

8. WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy is not applicable

in Europe.
E pert’s view: This is because Europe has General
Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law which
prohibits social media pro ling of its citizens.
WhatsApp is compliant with GDPR regulation and
doesn’t want to apply the same privacy policy to
Europe.

Indian government has raised an objection to the new

privacy policy’s contentious issues. "Such a di erential
treatment is prejudicial to the interests of Indian users
and is viewed with serious concern by the
government,” the Ministry of IT wrote in a letter to
Will Cathcart, global head for WhatsApp at Facebook.

Given that India’s draft PDP Bill is on the lines of

GDPR, exclusion of European region for the policy
could turn into an elephant trap for Facebook in India.

here is hatsApp headed amid all this?

Learnings from China have shown how instant
messaging apps like WeChat have a plethora of
opportunities to amalgamate various businesses and
products.

The ease of chatting also becomes the ease of doing

business in messaging platforms like WeChat,
KakaoTalk, and Line among others.

hatsApp has been moving the eChat way for

now, it wants to sell everything through hatsApp -
from transfer of funds to small value transactions to
selling insurance to retail transactions. In short, a
super-app.

Can it be a super-app soon? It’s a big question as

WhatsApp has always been under the eye of Indian
regulators.

It is the go-to messaging app for India — a country

which has seen the least data rates in the
subcontinent in the past ve years.

WhatsApp’s problem is that it is something Indians

start and end their day on. It was the winning rst BACK TO TOP

mover and hence due to its reach it is an easy guinea-

pig for the regulators.
Home Budget 2021 ETPrime Markets News Industry RISE Politics Wealth MF Tech Opinion NRI Panache ET NOW More

The app has been mired in controversies since its

takeover by Facebook. The policy update by the
company could well prove to be a speed-breaker in
WhatsApp’s India plans in the days to come from the
regulatory side.

This, even as WhatsApp Pay has just started to show

some green shoots in catching the payment buzz in
the country despite being on beta for two years.

Faisal Kawoosa, founder and CEO of techARC, tells ET

Prime, “B2C brands have to connect on WhatsApp, and
it gives you the opportunity to automate everything.
An SMS doesn’t give you that experience. B2C will
stick there, solopreneurs will stick to WhatsApp in
India. Only politicians would be moving to Signal
eventually.”

As Kawoosa puts it, Indians are WhatsApp loyalists

and that’s the sweet spot for policymakers. “Who says
Signal won’t change its policy in the future or for that
matter Telegram,” he asks.

Interestingly, India doesn’t even have a law to protect

personal and private data of its citizens. Despite that,
the country has permanently blocked the 59 Chinese
apps this week on national security grounds.

The government is serious about nailing private

players in the compliance rigmarole. The regulatory
and compliance burden could prove another irritant
for WhatsApp’s plans in such an environment.

The bottom line

Despite users’ shift to apps such as Signal and
Telegram in India, Facebook-owned WhatsApp is a
behemoth.

And it’s here to stay.

“WhatsApp has already accumulated 1.4 billion

downloads from the App Store and Google Play in
India — Telegram and Signal have a lot of catching up
to do,” says Chappel.

Parent Facebook is fully invested in monetising

WhatsApp. The investment in infrastructure to build a
BACK TO TOP

business pro le and its business API is not something

Home Budget 2021 the others competitors are keen on.
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Signal and Telegram have not even catered to

businesses. At this point, there is no alternative and
competitor that can stand up to WhatsApp Business
and business API in India.

Zuckerberg at the earnings call also said that more

than 175 million people message a WhatsApp Business
account every day and they’re building new features to
make it even easier to transact with businesses in the
app.

The competition is tough. But can encrypted

competitors buckle up in the coming days? It’s highly
unlikely, as business goals of both Signal and Telegram
are di erent from that of WhatsApp’s. It’s more about
being an omnipresent app, a one-stop-shop for
Indians.

“What seems more likely is that consumers will use

their choice of private messaging app alongside
WhatsApp,” concludes Chappel.

(Graphics by Mohammad Arshad)

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1 COMMENTS ON THIS STORY

Abhijeet Shinde 4 hours ago

Signal is a nonpro t app, how can it have same Goals as whatsapp?

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