The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is still rolling out some new devices, but there are also some information coming out regarding WhatsApp. Newly acquired by Facebook, WhatsApp has now announced that it won't let Facebook change its data policy.
While Facebook likes to acquire as much information as possible about its users, WhatsApp does the exact opposite. The messaging service actually asks its users for the bare minimum, according to The Express Tribune.
"The vision is to keep the service exactly the same," said Mark Zuckerberg of WhatsApp during a conference at the Mobile World Congress. "The content is deleted almost instantly, which is what people want. We would be pretty silly to get in the way of that."
WhatsApp is a hugely popular messenger app. Unfortunately, it lost millions of users over the weekend when it went offline for several hours, according to Gantdaily.com. Many of the users actually transferred over toe the Japanese messaging app, Line.
Even so, WhatsApp is still a powerhouse in terms of users-which is why Facebook recently acquired it. It already processes almost as many messages as the entire telecom industry, according to Forbes. It has about 450 million users with 70 percent active daily. That's why WhatsApp came with the hefty price tag of $19 billion.
In fact, it's estimated that the deal actually cost Facebook about $42 per WhatsApp user, according to The Express Tribune.Because of this, it's possible that Facebook may hike up current user fees; currently, WhatsApp users pay just $1 annually for the use of the services.
So what's in store for WhatsApp in the future? While Facebook may not be recording excess data, there will be some new features in store. WhatsApp CEO Jam Koum announced at the Mobile World Congress that the app will soon introduce a voice calling feature.
