Users are safe while using the app Viber and no one can read their messages, said Rakuten Viber's director of product development Nadav Melnik, after the launch of the new "Branded keywords" feature - branded keywords.
Previously, quite a number of Viber users were quite upset, but also angry, when in that application, in the private messages they wrote, in which they used words like "money" or "salary", advertisements for a bank's cash loan started popping up.
Based on the previously established "special effects" that Viber offers in the event that, for example, you wish someone a happy birthday with a message, the words "Happy birthday!" change color, and at the top of the message, pieces of cake and candles begin to descend with parachutes, one bank began to advertise its loans.
It used to happen that if you typed the terms "salary", "money", "credit", "bank", "expenses" and the like in a message on Viber, those words were automatically "highlighted" in red and in bold font, and a link with the bank's logo and the words "Take a loan" appeared below the message. That link led to the bank's website, specifically to the page where cash loans are offered.
Many Viber users perceived this type of advertising as very offensive, especially those who are not clients of the aforementioned bank.
Hand in hand with that, there was also the fear that Viber, by allowing this type of advertising, was actually "spying" on the correspondence of its users, which automatically led them to start asking questions about their security and data protection, as well as privacy violations.
However, the situation has changed, so on Viber, after the negative reactions of the public, there is no longer the mentioned irritating action of the bank.
If Viber had not given up on that - who knows what would have happened, because there is a huge number of words for which the "Branded keywords" function can be used. So it could happen that when you write "TV" in a Viber message, the name of a brand for electronic devices "pops up" immediately, or if you type "bread" you immediately get an offer to stop by the bakery of some famous pastry franchise.
Full encryption
However, Melnik told Newsmax Balkans television that privacy on Viber is not threatened in any way and that "no one, not Viber, not anyone else," is able to read messages, view photos or have access to any of that.
"This is a messenger that has full encryption. What happens is that when a user sends a message, it is sent in an encrypted way to the recipient and only then will it be decrypted," said Melnyk, who says that "they understand the concern about the new feature that exists on Viber."
"When users type in a certain word, for example 'happy birthday', a certain animation appears that accompanies it. The same applies to branded keywords. Only if users accept that it appears in a way that will allow certain brands to be advertised, only then will it appear. The user must explicitly accept all this and that way we receive certain income from advertisers," said Melnik.
He pointed out that the company, when it saw the negative experiences of certain keywords, decided to withdraw that function and think about which keywords will be branded in the future.
Source: FoNet
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