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WhatsApp CEO Is Against Whatever Facebook Is For
Huffington Post
February 21, 2014 1:41 AM GMT
Mark Zuckerberg may be Facebook friends with the guys whose company he just bought for $19 billion. But by all indications, Jan Koum, WhatsApp's CEO and Facebook's newest board member, just doesn't like Facebook very much.
Koum's Facebook profile is sparse by comparison with most, with airtight privacy settings that keep strangers from viewing his friends, his photos and his interests. His Facebook profile picture is as blank as they come: It's a plain, white square.
When asked in a 2012 interview with The Recapp to name his favorite apps other than WhatsApp, Koum listed just three: “On my iPhone 3GS, I use Instagram, Twitter and Touch,” he said.
Facebook, the company that just made Koum a billionaire several times over, is notably absent from that list.
The portrait of Koum that emerges from his interviews and social media posts over the past several years is that of a company founder who jealously guards his privacy and staunchly rejects both data collection and mobile advertising -- values that clash with the core principles on which Facebook is built.
WhatsApp was created around the premise that it should collect as little information about the people using its service as possible. This commitment grew out of Koum's personal experience with intrusive government surveillance during his childhood in the Ukraine, where he saw friends and dissidents punished for private speech. Though Facebook is certainly no totalitarian regime, the company does track each message that passes through its servers. Koum emphasized how different this model is from WhatsApp's in an interview with Wired just before the acquisition.
“I grew up in a society where everything you did was eavesdropped on, recorded, snitched on," Koum said. "People need to differentiate us from companies like Yahoo! and Facebook that collect your data and have it sitting on their servers. We want to know as little about our users as possible. We don't know your name, your gender… We designed our system to be as anonymous as possible."
Koum has stressed in previous interviews that he seeks to keep his personal life and his business affairs private, while Facebook prefers to have us make our lives an open book. Koum's Facebook profile could almost pass for a spam account, though it's the only “Jan Koum” who is friends with WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton, and the account is an administrator of the WhatsApp Facebook group. Koum did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Koum has also been an outspoken critic of online advertising, arguing that it intrudes on what he considers the intimate space of a smartphone and is quickly forgotten. Facebook, of course, draws most of its revenue from brands that pay to reach its more than 1 billion members.
“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy **** we don't need,” Koum tweeted in 2011, quoting a line from the movie Fight Club.
Koum and Acton have said publicly that they oppose data tracking, another favorite practice of Facebook that undergirds its core business.
"Everything is tied to our rejection of advertising," Koum told El Pais in 2012. “We worked for a long time at Yahoo! and when we left we decided to create something that would have nothing to do with this model where the user is the product -- something that would be a more conscious, private experience."
The difference between the values of Koum and those of Facebook is hardly bad news for the company. If anything, it may be to Facebook's advantage -- and its members' -- to have a strong advocate for privacy and anonymity in the upper echelons of the social network. And the timing is especially fortuitous for Facebook, which faces growing competition from apps like Snapchat that lets users, and their messages, disappear.
Whether Koum's principles will be made to disappear within Facebook, however, is another matter entirely.
02-21-14 07:40 AMLike 6 - When you need a lawyer to figure out what the fine print says about "your" data . . . the hair on the back of your neck should stand up!
"But it may share that information with third party service providers “to the extent that it is reasonably necessary to perform, improve or maintain the WhatsApp Service.”"
. . . WhatsApp users should switch to a more secure messaging service now that it is being bought by Facebook, a German data protection commissioner urged Thursday.
Facebook announced on Wednesday that it plans to acquire WhatsApp, a mobile messaging service with about 450 million monthly users, for $12 billion in shares, $4 billion in cash as well as $3 billion in stock options.
The deal could raise important data protection issues because the personal data of its users will likely be merged with Facebook data, said Thilo Weichert, data protection commissioner for the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.
When communication metadata and content of both services is merged, it can be used for profiling and commercially exploited for advertising purposes, Weichert said.
A Facebook spokeswoman declined to comment on Weichert’s concerns and referred to Facebook’s conference call about the acquisition on Wednesday, in which Facebook said that WhatsApp will continue to be run as an independent business.
WhatsApp said in a blog post on Wednesday ”nothing” will change for users.
The company states in its privacy policy that it will not sell or share personally identifiable information such as mobile phone numbers with third-party companies for their commercial or marketing use without consent. But it may share that information with third party service providers “to the extent that it is reasonably necessary to perform, improve or maintain the WhatsApp Service.”
WhatsApp also says it will not use that information itself for commercial or marketing messages without consent, “except as part of a specific program or feature for which users will have the ability to opt-in or opt-out.”
It says it also may use both personally identifiable information and certain non-personally identifiable information (such as anonymous user usage data, cookies, IP addresses, browser type, clickstream data, etc.) to improve the quality and design of its site and service as well as to create new features, promotions, functionality, and services by storing, tracking, and analyzing user preferences and trends.
In addition to having issues with possible profiling, Weichert also highlighted that both companies are based in the U.S., where there are less strict data protection laws than in Europe. He added that the services “refuse to comply with European and German data protection requirements.” . . .02-21-14 07:51 AMLike 7 - On this aspect :
In addition to having issues with possible profiling, Weichert also highlighted that both companies are based in the U.S., where there are less strict data protection laws than in Europe. He added that the services “refuse to comply with European and German data protection requirements.” . . .
BBC News - Data protection: Angela Merkel proposes Europe network
As for data sharing, privacy and all that good stuff, I think we are all on the same wavelength on this blog. Problem is most people either don't know or don't care... Google has been doing it for years, FB does it... and it has 1 B users.
Just a random thought: could BBRY offer, as a separate app, a consumer version fo BBM with telephone number sharing and some other goodies while keeping a second, more secure product for the Enterprise, etc. I am not sure this makes sense...
If WA got to 450M users with 32 engineers by offering what we consider is an inferior product, can't BBRY do better?02-21-14 08:04 AMLike 6 - I'm still long BlackBerry. I believe BlackBerry built a platform that will show its strength in the years to come. People were too quick to write them off but with only 1 year on the market, the Z30 is a testament to what's to come.
Smartphones are not just app launchers any more. They will be our wallets, our communications tools, our media centres, our video game systems, our work devices.
Multitasking, stability, security, performance will be what people will look for and bb10/11/12 will do it better.
Posted via CB1002-21-14 08:05 AMLike 7 - http://crackberry.com/blackberry-win...t-looking-good
If this real...they really reinvented the hardcore QWERTY BlackBerry.
Pre market trading is looking positive.
Followed the media on WhatsApp and Facebook. Alternative IM services are being mentioned including Telegram. A Russian app from the makers of the "Russian Facebook ". Now the number one app in iOS app store in my country. BBM is not even mentioned in the articles I've read, not even in the ones zooming in on privacy. That is so ignorant.
Posted via CB1002-21-14 08:41 AMLike 4 - Join the Cause @ BlackBerry Bootleg Marketing Channel - C003483F4
I really like your effort and channel BBUK. I just posted one of the BBM vs whatsapp on my Facebook. It is so easy to do with BB10 share feature too.
I hope, more people will join your channel, and repost / share the bootleg marketing effort virally.
Posted via swift BlackBerry Z30!02-21-14 08:46 AMLike 2 - http://crackberry.com/blackberry-win...t-looking-good
If this real...they really reinvented the hardcore QWERTY BlackBerry.
Pre market trading is looking positive.
Followed the media on WhatsApp and Facebook. Alternative IM services are being mentioned including Telegram. A Russian app from the makers of the "Russian Facebook ". Now the number one app in iOS app store in my country. BBM is not even mentioned in the articles I've read, not even in the ones zooming in on privacy. That is so ignorant.
Posted via CB10
Play Starcraft? Join our Channel: C001242DE02-21-14 08:47 AMLike 2 - Facebook pays $19bn for WhatsApp. Yep. $45 for YOUR phone book
"There's no secret sauce to WhatsApp, which in any case, has almost run out of BBM features to replicate."
Facebook pays $19bn for WhatsApp. Yep. $45 for YOUR phone book • The Register02-21-14 08:50 AMLike 4 -
Sound familiar????02-21-14 08:58 AMLike 2 - I would love to see Chen really go after Facebook and Whatsapp about security if Facebook won't give us instagram what is holding us back from going after them.02-21-14 09:09 AMLike 3
- BlackBerry Windermere/Q30 concept looking real hot | CrackBerry.com
If this real...they really reinvented the hardcore QWERTY BlackBerry.
Pre market trading is looking positive.
Followed the media on WhatsApp and Facebook. Alternative IM services are being mentioned including Telegram. A Russian app from the makers of the "Russian Facebook ". Now the number one app in iOS app store in my country. BBM is not even mentioned in the articles I've read, not even in the ones zooming in on privacy. That is so ignorant.
Posted via CB1002-21-14 09:16 AMLike 3 -
BB can do a whole campaign on security and connectivity though. Can't just attack one product.02-21-14 09:48 AMLike 2 -
It's just another version of the failed "if we just explain it one more time" strategy.02-21-14 09:54 AMLike 0 - Doom and gloom. Don't do any more business because some one is already
Doing it?
Windows browser dominated the entire pc side with more than 90% domination. But some companies never give up and are successful now. I was told by many of my teachers and relatives that I ll be failure in terms of making money in my life because I didn't fit in the system. Made more than the people who predicted.
Steve Jobs should have given up long times ago if he had listen to some of nay sayers here and in the press and in the wall street. John Chen would have not taken over his sybase if he didn't have the balls because other companies were dominating. Some people just see half a glass empty by nature and always praise the leader and that's understandable.
Posted using Z30. Best of the best Smart phone in the world.02-21-14 10:03 AMLike 7 - He wouldn't need to go that angle, he could discuss how they use, analyse and sell your data - only problem the vast majority just don't care either way - people have been banging the security drum for a long time and we've see leak after leak, NSA revelation after revelation, security fraud after security fraud and it has not made any difference at all to customer buying habits - it's a dead duck.
It's just another version of the failed "if we just explain it one more time" strategy.02-21-14 10:06 AMLike 0 -
- http://crackberry.com/blackberry-iss...ure-blackberry
Posted using Z30. Best of the best Smart phone in the world.02-21-14 10:46 AMLike 2 -
Nearly everyone has bought the theory that Android and Apple are the future FOREVER and that Windows is third and it's over. This theory has absolutely no historical precedent whatsoever. Indeed, there is ample historical evidence that leaders come and go and change and adapt and fall back and pull ahead. It's the nature of life.
The fact is that Apple and Android are really at a shared saturation point and that BlackBerry 10 is young, different, improving rapidly, and very, very good. Ignore the experts; they don't know a thing, and can be relied upon to predict the weather by looking out the window.
Let's see what this Z3 looks like, and whether BlackBerry have learned anything about pricing. This is not a zero sum situation. High quality devices, and a kick assessment OS will lead to sales. It will. With sales, the uncertainty will lift, and enterprise will be a piece of cake. I really think it's bass ackwards to focus on enterprise at the expense of OS, BBM, and devices, because without the latter, enterprise is going to remain under siege and continue to suffer from public uncertainty, especially if BlackBerry start throwing things overboard.
And now I realise I've clicked the wrong post to respond to - woops and my apologies!
Join the Cause @ BlackBerry Bootleg Marketing Channel - C003483F402-21-14 10:56 AMLike 5 - I'm not talking about enterprise or "tiny" consumer niche. I'm talking about a strong minority of consumer who really care about security. These people exist. Many people I know are very concerned about security these days, but never consider BB - only because of perception ("BB is dead isn't it"). When you make a survey here in Germany about smartphones and security I would predict, that at least 20 % of the consumer are very concerned and care about security. But they think, they have no choice.02-21-14 10:57 AMLike 3
- 02-21-14 11:13 AMLike 0
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