WhatsApp scraps May 15 deadline to accept its controversial privacy terms

New Delhi : Facebook-owned WhatsApp has scrapped its May 15 deadline to accept its controversial privacy term policies, saying that not accepting its terms will not lead to deletion of the users' account.

The company had received a lot of backlash from the users after it was notified that the data of users will be shared with its parent platform Facebook.

A company's spokesperson notified that there will be no account deletion if someone does not accept company's policy update by May 15, 2021.

"No accounts will be deleted on May 15 because of this update and no one in India will lose functionality of WhatsApp either. We will follow up with reminders to people over the next several weeks," the spokesperson said on Friday.

"We've spent the last few months working to clear up confusion and misinformation. As a reminder, this update does not impact the privacy of personal messages for anyone. Our goal is to provide information about new options we are building that people will have, to message a business on WhatsApp, in the future," the spokesperson stated.

The company spokesperson added: "While the majority of users who have received the new terms of service have accepted them, we appreciate some people haven’t had the chance to do so yet."

Months back, the company had made it compulsory for people to accept the new terms under which WhatsApp allowed user data sharing with Facebook. However, it has been notified that the new terms were applicable only on the business accounts.