“WhatsApp has an enormous amount of users,” he said. “It must be clear that the consent mechanism they use must be lawful and that consent is informed and freely given by the users.”
Like all users being informed that they need to get a written permission from all of their contacts, so that WhatsApp can upload their contacts’ data?
If they don’t get that permission, they can be sued for that. WhatsApp has failed to inform billions of users that they’re making them criminals.
And I don’t even want to get started on “freely given consent”. You’re not giving consent freely when half of your social existence is tied to that.
Communication platforms need to be regulated like utilities. We figured that out before, with mail and telephone. I don’t know why we’re taking so long to figure that out this time around.
Like all users being informed that they need to get a written permission from all of their contacts, so that WhatsApp can upload their contacts’ data?
If they don’t get that permission, they can be sued for that. WhatsApp has failed to inform billions of users that they’re making them criminals.
And I don’t even want to get started on “freely given consent”. You’re not giving consent freely when half of your social existence is tied to that.
Communication platforms need to be regulated like utilities. We figured that out before, with mail and telephone. I don’t know why we’re taking so long to figure that out this time around.