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Whatsapp Will Launch P2P Payment Service in India

4Apr By reutersNo Comments

News

Whatsapp Will Launch P2P Payment Service in India

Instant messaging app WhatsApp, owned by Facebook Inc, is mulling a foray into digital payment services in India, its first such offering globally, and has advertised to hire a digital transactions lead in the country. A WhatsApp move into digital payments in India, its biggest market that is home to 200 million of its billion plus global users, would replicate similar moves by messaging apps like Tencent Holdings Ltd's WeChat in China. WhatsApp is working to launch person-to-person payments in India in the next six months, news website The Ken reported earlier on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources. A job advertisement on WhatsApp's website said it was looking for a candidate with a technical and financial background - who understands India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and the ...

Security Flaw Found in WhatsApp, Telegram: Researchers

17Mar By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

News

Security Flaw Found in WhatsApp, Telegram: Researchers

A computer security firm today revealed a flaw that could let hackers break into WhatsApp or Telegram messaging accounts using the very encryption intended to protect messages. Check Point Software Technologies said that it alerted Telegram and Facebook-owned WhatsApp last week, waiting until the vulnerability was patched before making it public. Check Point did not specify how many messaging accounts were at risk, but did say the flaw posed a danger to "hundreds of millions" of users accessing the messaging platform from web browsers in computers, as opposed to mobile applications. "This new vulnerability put hundreds of millions of WhatsApp Web and Telegram Web users at risk of complete account take over," Check Point head of product vulnerability Oded Vanunu said in a release. ...

14 Billion Messages Sent on WhatsApp in India

8Jan By PriyankaNo Comments

News

14 Billion Messages Sent on WhatsApp in India

New Year's eve saw a whopping 14 billion messages being sent on WhatsApp in India as more people opted to send season's greetings through the instant messaging platform than traditional routes like SMS and greeting cards. India is the largest market for the Facebook-owned company, accounting for about 160 million of its over 1 billion users. According to data shared by WhatsApp, 14 billion messages were sent on December 31, 2016 alone, an all-time high from India. With telecom operators charging a premium for SMS on occasions like New Year and Diwali, WhatsApp has been gaining popularity as an alternative as it is available free for users (apart from data charges). The traffic on the last day of 2016 was higher than WhatsApp's last record of 8 billion messages in one day on Diwali ...

European Commission Suspends WhatsApp Operation Over Sharing User Data

16Nov By AdityaNo Comments

News

European Commission Suspends WhatsApp Operation Over Sharing User Data

WhatsApp has temporarily suspended giving parent company Facebook information about users in Europe for ad targeting, responding to concerns there over privacy, a source close to the matter has said. Conversations with officials in Europe over the past few months resulted in the social network deciding to only tapping into WhatsApp user data there for purposes such as fighting spam, according to the source. The break was described as an effort to give regulators time to share privacy concerns and for Facebook to consider ways to address them. German data protection authorities in September cited privacy concerns when they blocked Facebook from collecting subscriber data from WhatsApp there. "It has to be (the users') decision whether they want to connect their account with Faceboo...

Whatsapp Starts Monetising From Next Year, Launched Video Calling Services

15Nov By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Whatsapp Starts Monetising From Next Year, Launched Video Calling Services

Popular messaging app WhatsApp will focus on rolling out commercial messaging next year for businesses as it looks to tap enterprises for monetising its platform. Earlier this year, WhatsApp had said it will stop charging USD 1 per year subscription fee to go completely free for its users across the world. While WhatsApp maintained that it will not introduce any third-party ads for monetisation, it said it will test tools that allows users to communicate with businesses and organisations like banks and airlines through its platform. "We decided to make WhatsApp free but we also talked about how we will make money. We have been working on ways for businesses to connect with users on WhatsApp... Commercial messaging will be big for us in 2017," WhatsApp Head of Business, Neeraj Arora t...

Hike Messenger Launched Video Calling Feature

26Oct By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Hike Messenger Launched Video Calling Feature

India’s home grown messaging platform, Hike Messenger, has launched video calling feature on its app. Video calling, the beta of which was rolled out in September this year to a select set of less than a hundred thousand, will now begin to roll out to the entire userbase starting with Android users this week. Live Caller Preview is another interesting aspect of video calling on Hike. This allows the user to see a live video preview of the caller before answering the call. Hike video calling is available immediately on Android. If users updated their Hike Messenger in September this year, video calling would have automatically been enabled for them and will now be accessible. The iOS version will be launch soon. On this occasion, Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder and CEO, Hike Messenger...

Google Launches Its own Messaging App Allo

21Sep By AdityaNo Comments

News

Google Launches Its own Messaging App Allo

Search engine giant Google has launched its AI based messaging app Allo, which would compete with the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Available for both Android and iOS platforms, Allo will also mark the debut of Google Assistant in a preview edition. "Whether it is planning a night out or just catching up, we rely on messaging to stay in touch with friends and family every day. But too often we have to hit pause on our conversation ? whether it is to check the status of a flight or look up that new restaurant. So we created Allo, a messaging app that helps you keep your conversation going, by providing assistance when you need it," Google Group Product Manager Amit Fulay said. Powered with artificial intelligence, Allo packs in features including smart reply, options for sh...

WhatsApp to Share User Data With Facebook: HC Seeks Govt Reply

31Aug By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

INDIA

WhatsApp to Share User Data With Facebook: HC Seeks Govt Reply

WhatsApps recent decision to share user data with parent company Facebook today reached the doorsteps of Delhi High Court, which sought the governments response on the modification. A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra issued notice to the Centre on a plea by two users of the most popular instant messaging service, alleging that WhatsApp, Facebook Inc and Facebook India Online Pvt Ltds new private policy "compromises the rights of its users". Taking note of the concern by petitioners Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi, the high court wished to examine the issue and asked the concerned authorities to file their reply by September 14. "The privacy policy is in stark contrast to the Privacy Policy existing from July 7, 2012. In its first revised modificatio...

WhatsApp Will Share Your Phone Number with Facebook

25Aug By PriyankaNo Comments

News

WhatsApp Will Share Your Phone Number with Facebook

Messaging service WhatsApp has updated its global privacy policy, under which it will now share phone numbers of users with its parent company, Facebook. While the move will help Facebook offer more targeted advertisements on its own platform, WhatsApp will continue to be ad-free, a WhatsApp spokesperson said. He added that this is the first time when WhatsApp has updated user privacy policy after being acquired by Facebook in 2014 in a USD 19-billion deal. Privacy advocates had raised concerns that Facebook would start mining WhatsApp accounts for data. However, both the companies have maintained that WhatsApp would operate separately from the parent company and that its user data would not be shared without users consent.WhatsApp has over one billion users globally, with a significant...

Year’s Biggest Tech IPO- Line Launch Goes Well

18Jul By PriyankaNo Comments

BUSINESS

Year’s Biggest Tech IPO- Line Launch Goes Well

Japan's Line Corp saw its shares rocket on their Tokyo debut, extending a strong start in New York the day before, and taking the value of the messaging app firm to $8.6 billion in the year's biggest tech IPO. The operator of the world's seventh most-used messaging app listed first in New York in a move widely seen as a sign of determination to challenge global peers and eventually expand beyond strongholds of Japan and Southeast Asia. However, Line's 218 million global monthly active users pale in comparison to the 1 billion of market-leader WhatsApp and 900 million of Messenger, both owned by Facebook Inc. Tencent Holdings Ltd's WeChat, which dominates in China, has 697 million. "We're providing the same kind of services as Facebook and Google, the internet giants of the world," Chi...

Whatsapp Co-founder Invested In Delhi-based Startup

11Jul By RishabhNo Comments

FUNDING

Whatsapp Co-founder Invested In Delhi-based Startup

Delhi-based Trak N Tell, a car tracking telematics solution startup has recently raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a group of investors, led by Whatsapp co-founder Brian Acton. This is one of the major investment in any Indian startup involving a high profile Silicon Valley's entrepreneur. While the terms of the Series-A round were not disclosed, Acton, along with two other investors, whose names have also not been revealed, are believed to have pumped in about $3.5 million (Rs 23.3 crore) in the nine-year-old venture. "We are very pleased to have Brian on board, and he's been of tremendous help in terms of strategising, and planning for the company's next stage of growth," Pranshu Gupta, chief executive of Trak N Tell, said in a statement. Founded by Pranshu Gupta, a syste...

27Jun By reutersNo Comments

News

Messaging App Line Delayed IPO Launch

Japanese messaging app firm Line Corp has delayed setting a tentative price range for its initial public offering (IPO) by one day, until Tuesday, the company said in a regulatory filing, citing the "market environment". The IPO price range was originally scheduled to be announced on Monday. Line still plans to list in New York on July 14 and in Tokyo the following day, the filing showed. On Friday, the S&P 500 fell 3.6 percent, its biggest one-day drop in 10 months, and Japan's broad Topix index slid 7 percent after Britain voted to exit the European Union. The equity market in Japan recovered somewhat on Monday as the Topix closed up 1.8 percent, but the delay will allow the company to assess the market in New York and London on Monday before setting the tentative price range, a...