Meta announced May 26 changes to its Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. These are changes to the form and not the substance. The aim is to make everything easier to read for its users in order to meet the expectations of regulators around the world.
Meta TOCs change appearance
The new rules are set to go into effect on July 26 on nearly all of Meta’s services. Most of them will be impacted by these changes. Only WhatsApp will not be affected by these changes. In January 2021, Meta had faced controversy after changing its privacy policy and terms of use for its messaging service. In order to use the app, users were required to allow their WhatsApp data to be shared with Meta.
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The parent company of Facebook and Instagram is aware of the challenges of this transformation. Rob Sherman, chief privacy officer at the tech giant, tells TechCrunch that ” one of the challenges we and other companies face is that privacy policies need to be comprehensive and provide explicit details about how user data is used and protected “.
This is what the new appearance of the TOS of Meta services will look like. Image: Meta.
Now the company includes captions and illustrations to present information more clearly. However, the majority of these will remain in text form. Despite their best efforts, users are unlikely to read all of the terms, as they remain relatively substantial.
If Meta is updating the form of its privacy policy and terms of use, it is above all to reassure regulators. ” A big part of the objective is obviously to ensure that we meet our regulatory obligations », admits Rob Sherman. Finally, the social networking giant seeks above all to comply with the expectations of regulators around the world.