I don't know. Do you? The terms and conditions say they do it for "operating and providing our Services". It's vague on purpose.
And it's not only FB, it's their "business partners" (read it as: whoever pays us) too.
"As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies. We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them, to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services and their offerings. This includes helping improve infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our Services or theirs are used, securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities. Facebook and the other companies in the Facebook family also may use information from us to improve your experiences within their services such as making product suggestions (for example, of friends or connections, or of interesting content) and showing relevant offers and ads. However, your WhatsApp messages will not be shared onto Facebook for others to see. In fact, Facebook will not use your WhatsApp messages for any purpose other than to assist us in operating and providing our Services."
So, I took a look. You said that they share the contests of your messages. Looks like that's simply wrong.
Messsages
"We do not retain your messages in the ordinary course of providing our Services to you. Instead, your messages are stored on your device and not typically stored on our servers. Once your messages are delivered, they are deleted from our servers."
Photos
"When a user forwards media within a message, we store that media temporarily in encrypted form on our servers"
Automatically Collected Information
Usage And Log Information, Device And Connection Information, Location Information and Cookies.
What am I missing? What exactly is WhatsApp doing wrong? Once again, I hate shady shit, but I'm not seeing anything crazy in here.
"The information we share with the other Facebook Companies. includes your account registration information (such as your phone number), transaction data, service-related information, information on how you interact with others (including businesses) when using our Services, mobile device information, your IP address, and may include other information identified in the Privacy Policy section entitled ‘Information We Collect’ or obtained upon notice to you or based on your consent."
All in all, nothing special. Nobody shares your messages/media.
The very block of text you quoted is terrifying for me.
Why am I getting the impression there is no convincing you about how bad for our privacy this is?
Because half of what you said is wrong. Your original message states that WhatsApp shares contents of your messages, your location, photos of your kids, etc with third-parties.
> The contents of my messages, photos of my kids, who I talk to and when, my location. Is that enough for you?
Look, this is simply not truth. You are ex-aggregating things and create a panic out of nothing. If you don't like them knowing your location, fine, turn Location Services off. As for media, nobody cares about photos of your kids. It's a not monetizable content.
