WhatsApp on Friday announced a three-month delay to a new privacy policy that was due to come into effect on February 8th after widespread confusion over whether the new policy will go into effect. Force share data with Facebook.

The update does not actually affect the sharing of data with Facebook regarding user conversations or other profile information; WhatsApp has repeatedly made it clear that its update handles business conversations in the event the user speaks to the company’s customer service platform via WhatsApp.

“We have heard from many people about the extent of confusion around our recent update. There has been a lot of misinformation causing concern and we want to help everyone understand our principles and facts,” the company wrote at A new blog post was published today.

Since 2016, WhatsApp has shared certain information with Facebook, including your phone number, unless you are one of the few selected users. He chose to opt out of sharing data while the option was still available that year. However, WhatsApp does not look at people’s chat messages or listen to their phone calls, and WhatsApp conversations are end-to-end encrypted to protect against those violations.

Despite this, a popup notifying users of the new change included a mention of how WhatsApp partnered with Facebook, and it also included an alert directing users to delete their accounts if they chose not to agree to the new terms. This gave people the idea that they were being directed to new, more invasive terms.

The company A separate blog post was released this week In an effort to remove confusion, it has included a chart that identifies protected and unshared information when someone uses WhatsApp.

But several media reports highlighting the addition of a new and broad language in the privacy policy (the language that WhatsApp says has been misinterpreted to mean compulsory data sharing) and the misinformation on social media have combined to a complete backlash on WhatsApp privacy. The result was a Increase in signups for messaging competitors Like Signal and Telegram.

Facebook executives, including Instagram chief Adam Mosseri and WhatsApp president Will Cathcart, used Twitter to try to clear up the confusion, and it appears to have had little success. Facebook’s poor privacy tracking record, and the fact that WhatsApp has turned its sights over time to monetizing the platform for its large international user base have eroded trust in the chat app, which in turn has had the effect of turning into a relatively mundane update into a global controversy.

WhatsApp says it will now use this three-month delay to better communicate both changes to its new policy and long-standing privacy practices around personal chats, location sharing, and other sensitive data. The blog post reads: “We are now returning the date when people will be required to review and accept the terms.”

WhatsApp says that no one will lose access to the app if they don’t agree to the new Terms of Service agreement that reported the changes earlier this month. “We’ll also do more to clear up misinformation about how privacy and security work on WhatsApp. We will then go to people gradually to review the policy at their own pace before new job options become available on May 15,” the company says.

WhatsApp says the edge The policy will not change when it arises. The goal of the update is to inform users that business messages on WhatsApp may be stored on Facebook servers, which entails sharing data between the two companies (this data, WhatsApp says, can be used by companies for the purpose of advertising, but Facebook does not automatically share it via its apps). WhatsApp still intends to release the update on May 15th to coincide with new commercial chat features The preview began again in October.

But the company hopes the extra time will help it deal with controversy and better its messaging about what is really changing.

The update includes new options that people will have to message a company on WhatsApp, and it provides more transparency about how data is collected and used. While not everyone with a business is shopping on WhatsApp today, we believe that more people will choose to do so in the future and it is important for people to be aware of these services, “as stated in the blog post.” This update does not extend our ability to share data with Facebook. . ”

Update January 15th, 3:26 PM ET: Explain how WhatsApp’s new privacy policy will deal with data collected during conversations with companies as part of the upcoming privacy policy change, which will take effect now May 15th.