Privacy survey: Large majority continues to use WhatsApp despite privacy debate

The messenger service WhatsApp does not exactly have the best reputation at the moment. The criticism comes primarily from data protectionists. Normal users, on the other hand, shrug their shoulders.

The months-long controversy over WhatsApp's new privacy rules appears to have had little consequence for Facebook's chat service in Germany. In a survey commissioned by the news agency dpa, 79 percent said they use the app on their smartphone. According to the survey, a good half of WhatsApp users (52 percent) already agreed with the new rules, which came into force in mid-May.

At the same time, 13 percent said they planned to delete the app. Around half of them already had data protection concerns beforehand, while five percent of respondents only had doubts following the debate about the new regulations. Two percent want to leave because many of their contacts would also have removed WhatsApp.

Half have "no good feeling," but stay anyway

Whether it actually comes to the permanent departure from WhatsApp, however, is another question. In the past twelve months, only three percent of respondents deleted the app from their smartphones. And a total of eight percent said they had already removed WhatsApp once - but then returned because too many of their contacts could be reached via the service.

At the same time, almost half of WhatsApp users do not have a good feeling about data protection. One in three, for example, has reservations - but stays because that's where the contact persons can be reached. Another 14 percent also have doubts, but do not know of any good alternative. No data protection concerns are expressed by 28 percent.

High purchase price - but hardly any profit

WhatsApp has more than two billion users, but has had to contend with criticism in recent months following the announcement of new usage rules. The trigger was an update with which WhatsApp wanted to share more data with its parent company Facebook. WhatsApp rejected this as a misunderstanding - and ultimately dropped plans to restrict the range of functions for users who do not agree to the rules.

For Facebook, the changes are a first attempt to make money with WhatsApp. The world's largest social network took over Messenger in 2014 for around $22 billion. With the purchase, Facebook took a potential rival off the market, but the service has hardly contributed to the group's profits so far. The company cannot afford discussions about possible churn at this time.

Signal as the most popular alternative

According to the survey, the most popular WhatsApp alternative is Signal with 27 percent. WhatsApp also uses this app's technology for end-to-end encryption. With full encryption, the content of the communication is only visible in plain text to the participants, but not to the platform operators. Signal is now financially supported by WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton, who left the Facebook group.

Telegram was almost on a par with Signal in the favor of potential WhatsApp churners. The app operated by the founder of the Russian Facebook clone VKontakte, Pavel Durov, is the choice of 26 percent. The service Threema came in at 16 percent, and 13 percent want to switch to Facebook's in-house alternative Messenger. To the classical SMS instead of end-to-end encrypted chat services want to fall back 15 percent. In the representative online survey, Yougov Germany questioned a total of 2029 people in mid-June.

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