WhatsApp: Let us share your data with Facebook or else

In a surprise move, WhatsApp recently gave many of its users a difficult choice: they could either accept a revised privacy policy that explicit allowed the service to share information with parent company Facebook by February 8th, or decline and risk not being able to use the service at all. The company informed those users through an in-app notification which lays out the changes in very broad terms: the updates to the policy include "more information about WhatsApp's service and how we process your data, how businesses can use Facebook hosted services to store and manage their WhatsApp chats, [and] how we partner with Facebook to offer integrations across the Facebook Company Products." Upon further inspection, the updated policy makes clear that data collected by WhatsApp -- including user phone numbers, "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 more are subject to be shared with other properties owned and controlled by Facebook. "As part of the Facebook Companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information (see here) with, the other Facebook Companies," the updated privacy policy reads. "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, including the Facebook Company Products."