http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26481654

Facebook has recently been given the green light to purchase Whatsapp for a whopping $19 billion. However there has been a lot of controversy with regards to the privacy for many existing whatsapp consumers, and Europe’s Telecom’s market.

The deal has been criticized heavily by European Telecom companies, worried about their loss in revenue from free mobile messaging services provided by Whatsapp as well as concerns related to privacy for users.

Facebook is notorious for providing personal information to collect advertisement revenues, something that Whatsapp is committed to not doing. Whilst Facebook has stated that it intends to respect the privacy policies set in place for Whatsapp, Zuckerberg has in fact changed Privacy Regulations towards recently acquired companies. According to Friedman, these ‘acts of responsibility’ could just be to cover up an interior motive.

Friedman argues that as long as profit is being maximized the business is working responsibly. However if Zuckerberg does indeed change the privacy policies then he will be deceiving the public and current users, something  that might possibly affect Facebook’s reputation in the long run potentially limiting future users from using Whatsapp and instead using other competitors such as Wechat, KakaoTalk, and Viber.

Sources Cited:

Rawlinson, Kevin. “Facebook’s WhatsApp purchase opposed.” BBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2014. <http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26481654>.

CNET. “Facebook’s WhatsApp deal gets regulatory OK in Europe – CNET.” CNET. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2014. <http://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-whatsapp-deal-gets-regulatory-ok-in-europe/>.

Zimmerli, Walther Ch., Klaus Richter, and Markus Holzinger. Corporate Ethics and Corporate Governance. Berlin: Springer, 2007. Print.