First, there were WhatsApp labels in December on the App Store that suggested the vast amount of data the app collected in comparison to other messaging apps. Then earlier this month, the app introduced its controversial privacy policy change — which is now delayed till May. Last night, on Facebook’s quarterly investor call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t directly address WhatsApp’s privacy concerns. But he took a jibe at Apple and its ‘nutrition labels,’ which denotes data collected by an app. Zuckerberg pointed out that Apple stores a non-encrypted backup of your iMessage chats by default in iCloud: The Facebook CEO’s note is true, but he’s also forgetting that while WhatsApp doesn’t store backups by default, they are also not encrypted when uploaded to iCloud or Google Drive. So not much for superiority, eh? Zuckerberg’s feud with Apple is not new. Last year, the Facebook co-founder took a swipe at the iPhone maker for its App Store policies. In April, the company printed full-page ads in the newspaper to call out Apple’s ad-tracking practices. However, the Facebook topman’s latest jibe feels empty. Currently, WhatsApp has more privacy-related questions to answer than iMessage, and a snarky remark isn’t a good response.
