Skype say: we respects your privacy. We are committed to keeping your personal data private

WhatsApp's new privacy policy didn't go unnoticed last week and certainly not in Microsoft's eyes. The company took the opportunity to promote its own service.

 

 

For several days now, WhatsApp users have been invited to accept a new condition for using the instant messaging service: the company explains that from February 8, data will be shared with Facebook, otherwise the service will be inaccessible.

 

 

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Skype wants to ride the anti-WhatsApp wave

 

 

For many users, enough is too much, especially since the case comes days after Facebook had to reveal the extent of user data collected on its iOS app in order to comply with Apple's new policy. The community giant had also publicly criticized this obligation of transparency.

While the Signal application has already benefited from very wide visibility following this case, the Skype team also intends to take advantage of the situation. In a message posted on Twitter this weekend, Microsoft assures us that “Skype respects your privacy. We are committed to keeping your data private and not reselling it to third parties ”.

 

 

 Microsoft took the opportunity to share its confidentiality policy; we learn that the company collects a certain amount of personal information but the nature of the latter is not very clear. Especially since for the moment, Microsoft has not yet updated its file on iOS or macOS; it will have to do this when the next update is published.

According to the explanations provided by the editor of Redmond, the data collected is used for:

provide products, including updating, securing, troubleshooting, as well as providing support;
improve and develop its products;
personalize its products and offer recommendations to users;
send advertising and marketing communications, send promotional communications, targeted advertisements and presentations of offers likely to be of interest to its users.

 

Lire aussi :Elon Musk gives Signal a boost over WhatsApp's new policy

 

 

Facebook: precedents that worry

Compared to Signal, Threema, Olvid or Wire, Skype is therefore clearly not positioned in the private messaging sector. Microsoft is actually communicating here about the security of personal data.

Remember that Facebook is a bad student in this area. As part of the Cambridge Analytica affair, the private data of 87 million Facebook users had been scrutinized, in 2014, in particular to influence voting intentions. And last April, hackers sold the personal data of 267 million users of the social network.

According to a Facebook spokesperson, however, the company complies with data security rules imposed by “European Data Protection”. In this context, Facebook would not access the data of WhatsApp users within the European Union, whether to improve its products or its advertising.

However, this does not prevent WhatsApp from returning this warning and imposing this condition before the deadline of February 8 for the use of its service.