‘Move on to Signal app now,’ says Paytm CEO amid WhatsApp privacy row

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder and CEO of homegrown fintech platform, Paytm, on Monday slammed WhatsApp and Facebook amid the ongoing privacy row regarding WhatsApp’s latest privacy update.

Sharma urged users to move to the Signal app.

“They say, market has power. We are the largest market. Here in India WhatsApp / Facebook are abusing their monopoly & taking away millions of users' privacy for granted. We should move on to @signalapp NOW. It is up to us to become victim or reject such moves,” said Sharma in a tweet.

Messaging app Signal has gained significant popularity, witnessing a surge in new downloads this week.

Signal on Saturday morning tweeted that the app has topped the list of free apps on Apple’s App Store charts in India, Austria, France, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, and Switzerland.

The messaging app saw a massive surge in new downloads after Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted about the app.

Musk, following WhatsApp’s new privacy policy update, took a jibe at the Facebook-owned platform and tweeted, “Use Signal.”

Signal saw a significant jump in new sign-ups after Musk’s tweet, among other popular endorsements and amid concerns regarding WhatsApp’s new privacy policy where it mentioned that it would share user data with Facebook.

WhatsApp last week announced that it has updated its terms of service and privacy policies which will take effect on February 8. The Facebook-owned messaging platform has started to notify users regarding the change. Users are required to accept the new terms in order to continue using the app. The platform can share certain data with Facebook. This has raised concerns regarding the updated policy across the globe.

Will Cathcart, Head of @WhatsApp, tried to clear the air regarding the new update in a Twitter thread over the weekend stating that the updated policy was meant to better describe the platform’s people-to-business features.

“It's important for us to be clear this update describes business communication and does not change WhatsApp’s data sharing practices with Facebook. It does not impact how people communicate privately with friends or family wherever they are in the world,” wrote Cathcart.

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