WhatsApp denies it will drop privacy update for Turkey users

WhatsApp disputed the Turkish notice, saying ‘it is not the case that we no longer intend to roll out the update in Turkey’. — AFP

ANKARA, Turkey: Turkey’s competition watchdog said on May 21 it was told by WhatsApp that the chat app won’t apply a controversial privacy update following an investigation, but the announcement was contradicted by the Facebook-owned app, which said it still plans to roll out the update for Turkish users.

It’s a fresh sign of the confusion between regulators and the tech company over the update to WhatsApp’s terms of service and privacy rules, which has raised concerns that users are being forced to agree to share more of their data with Facebook. Germany last week ordered Facebook to stop processing WhatsApp user data over concern about the changes.