Facebook rethinks their plans to destroy WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram

We reported recently what Facebook was planning to merge the back-ends of WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram, allowing users to cross message each other on each platform, and weaken the privacy controls of WhatsApp in the process.

At the time the report stated that Mark Zuckerburg was personally involved in the project and was pushing for its completion.

Since the plan leaked however there has already been significant pushback, including EU data controllers questioning Facebook’s right to combine data from WhatsApp and Facebook without explicit permission from users.

It seems all the attention has allowed Mark Zuckerberg to rethink his plans, as in Facebook’s earnings call he now said the plans will have to wait till at least 2020.

“The integration that we’re thinking about, we’re really early in thinking through this,” Zuckerberg said on the company’s Q4 earnings call. “There’s a lot more we need to figure out.”

Facebook today announced that there are a combined 2.5 billion people on their 3 messaging platforms, and on the earnings call suggested this would enough to create an iMessage-type layer which could replace SMS messages completely. Let’s hope privacy advocates and regulators stop the Zuck before its too late.

Via the Verge