So Whatsapp is updating its terms and privacy policy again. Interestingly enough, so far you can’t read that announcement outside of the app, e.g. in their official blog. And as they already tried a year ago or earlier, they now will share the data of Whatsapp with their mothership company Facebook Inc.

So here I go in a try to delete Whatsapp. So far I have done it once successfully until I moved outside of Munich and into a small village. Back then I reinstalled Whatsapp because for so many people this is the only choice of communicating with other people.

Today I wrote my most recent contacts that there are now four ways to contact me from now on: Signal, Telegram, Email or phone. It should be enough, everyone should have these few megabytes to install another app. I’m really afraid but if you’re not willed to do this, this friendship/contact is probably not worth it or you can still email or phone me which is a nice and efficient way to communicate, talk anyways.

The simple WHY: Facebook’s business model builds up on exploiting user’s private data to serve ads. Whatsapp is Facebook and a messenger naturally gets a lot of private information from its users, including precision location data and pictures, even audio. There are alternatives that even have more comfortable usage by now, like Signal (very secure and nice) or Telegram (more secure and independent than Whatsapp and well known). In short: There is no reason to not drop the worst of the three (Whatsapp).

Let’s all hope that this time Whatsapp is gone from my phone forever and hopefully from the phones of many contacts as well.