Instant messaging app Telegram has now clocked 500 million active users globally. While that is a significant milestone in itself, the bigger highlight perhaps is that 25 million new active users have joined the privacy focused Telegram in the past 72 hours, to push the user base beyond the 500 million mark. This sudden spike in users shouldn’t come as a surprise, after the Facebook owned WhatsApp announced the new Privacy Policy and Terms of Use on January 7 with pop-up alerts for users in the WhatsApp app, something that did nothing to assuage the fears about user data tracking and sharing. At this time, Telegram is the second most popular app on the Apple App Store for iPhone users, behind Signal. WhatsApp has been pushed down to third, though the latest numbers suggest WhatsApp is still being downloaded in large numbers.
“Telegram surpassed 500 million active users. 25 million new users joined in the last 72 hours: 38% came from Asia, 27% from Europe, 21% from Latin America and 8% from MENA,” says Telegram in an official update shared on Pavel Durov’s channel. Durov is the CEO of Telegram. “With half a billion active users and accelerating growth, Telegram has become the largest refuge for those seeking a communication platform committed to privacy and security. We take this responsibility very seriously. We won’t let you down,” he adds.
While a lot of what is in the new terms has already been known, the clarity hasn’t helped user confidence. WhatsApp is now spelling it out clearly that user data is and will continue to be shared with Facebook and other Facebook products as well as services. This will include tracking your usage behavior to personalize the app behavior and to serve personalized suggestions as well as advertisements targeted at you. WhatsApp also says that it tracks user location data at all times, and even if you are smart enough to turn off location access for WhatsApp on your Android phone or Apple iPhone, the app still collects and logs IP addresses and phone number codes to estimate your general location—WhatsApp says this is for diagnostics and troubleshooting. WhatsApp has been trying to clarify a lot of the doubts, but seems to be answering most of the wrong questions.
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