The European Consumers' Organization complained about WhatsApp

The European Consumers' Organization (BEUC) announced on Monday that it had complained to the European Commission about the WhatsApp messaging service over controversial changes to its privacy policy. This was stated by the AFP news agency. BEUC and eight of its member associations claim that the new rules are "not transparent or comprehensible to users" and have accused the WhatsApp platform of "multiple infringements of European consumer rights". The complaint is addressed to the European Commission as well as to the European Network of Consumer Protection Authorities. WhatsApp, Facebook's messaging service, informed its approximately two billion users earlier this year that they must agree to the new terms of use. The company then postponed the application of the new rules until May 15, as users feared that the messaging service would share their data with its parent company, Facebook. Several EU countries, including Germany, have temporarily banned Facebook from using data exchanged through WhatsApp. "For several months now, WhatsApp has been bombarding its clients with aggressive and repeated messages to force them to adopt new terms of use and a new privacy policy," BEUC CEO Monique Goyens said in a statement to the media. According to BEUC and its member organizations, consumers cannot have a clear idea of ​​the privacy implications of the changes, in particular as regards the transfer of their personal data to Facebook and other third parties. Goyens pointed out that the WhatsApp platform is intentionally ambiguous in this matter and that consumers face the risk of extensive processing of their personal data without consent. "We call on the authorities to take swift action against WhatsApp to ensure that the service respects consumer rights," Goyens said. The European Commission and national consumer protection authorities must now decide whether or not to open an investigation into this matter. BEUC, which brings together 46 consumer protection organizations from 32 European countries, pointed out in this connection that the new conditions required by the WhatsApp platform are already being analyzed by European data protection authorities to determine whether there is a breach of the relevant legislation.