WhatsApp has revealed that it will take legal action against those businesses engaged in or assisting others in abusing automated or bulk messaging on its platform. In order to help small firms manage customer interactions, the messaging platform offers WhatsApp Business app and Business API. The Facebook-owned company says that its tools are not intended for bulk or automated messaging.
“WhatsApp will take legal action against those we determine are engaged in or assisting others in abuse that violates our terms of service, such as automated or bulk messaging, or non-personal use, even if that determination is based on information solely available to us off our platform,” the Facebook-owned platform said in a statement.
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For example, off-platform information includes public claims from companies about their ability to use WhatsApp in ways that violate its terms. “This serves as notice that we will take legal action against companies for which we only have off-platform evidence of abuse if that abuse continues beyond December 7, 2019, or if those companies are linked to on-platform evidence of abuse before that date,” said WhatsApp.
As per the company, over two million WhatsApp accounts are banned every month for bulk or automated behavior. An account that registered five minutes before attempting to send 100 messages in 15 seconds is almost certain to be engaged in abuse. This also the case with an account that attempts to create a bunch of groups or add vast number of users to a series of existing groups. “Using the on-platform information available within WhatsApp, we’ve found and stopped millions of abusive accounts from operating on our service,” WhatsApp said.
Besides, WhatsApp will drop support for millions of Android, iOS, Windows mobile phones from 2020. The messaging app will stop working on iOS devices running iOS 8 or earlier after February 1, 2020. It also will also not work on Android phones running on 2.3.7 and older versions.
– With inputs from IANS
