Moreover, the company will make it easier for users to reject updates when they disagree with them, and will clearly explain when such rejection leads the user to no longer be able to use WhatsApp’s services. Also, WhatsApp confirmed that users’ personal data are not shared with third-parties or other Meta companies – including Facebook – for advertising purposes. The dialogue was coordinated by the Swedish Consumer Agency and the Irish Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and facilitated by the Commission.

The CPC Network first sent a letter to WhatsApp in January 2022, following an alert by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and eight of its member associations on alleged unfair practices in the context of WhatsApp’s updates to their terms of service and privacy policy. In June 2022, the CPC Network sent a second letter to WhatsApp reiterating their request that consumers must be clearly informed about WhatsApp’s business model and, in particular, whether WhatsApp derives revenues from commercial policies relating to users’ personal data. Following discussions among the CPC Network, the Commission and WhatsApp, the company confirmed that it does not share users’ personal data for advertising purposes.

Overview of commitments

For any future policy updates, WhatsApp will:

• explain what changes it intends to make to the users’ contracts and how they could affect their rights;
• include the possibility to reject updated terms of service as prominently as the possibility to accept them;
• ensure that the notifications informing about the updates can be dismissed or the review of the updates can be delayed, as well as respect users’ choices and refrain from sending recurring notifications.

Next steps

The Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC) will actively monitor how WhatsApp implements these commitments when making any future updates to its policies and, where necessary, enforce compliance – including by the possibility of imposing fines.

Moreover, a recent Commission study and the last CPC sweep on “dark patterns” showed that many companies use “dark patterns”, for example making it more difficult to unsubscribe from a service than to subscribe to it. The CPC Network, with the support of the Commission, will continue to intensify their efforts to addres such illegal practices where they occur.