Propose One New Privacy Control for WhatsApp and Justify the Choice

You are a product manager on WhatsApp at Meta, and you are asked which privacy feature you would add to the app. Propose one new feature: explain who it is for and what privacy problem it solves for them, how you chose it over other ideas, and how you would know it worked. ```hint Start from the gaps WhatsApp already ships many privacy settings. Find a group of users facing a specific privacy risk that the current settings leave unsolved, and design for them rather than for privacy in general. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Is the main aim to deepen trust among existing users, or to win over people who avoid WhatsApp today because of privacy worries? - Should the feature cover conversations with businesses and WhatsApp Business accounts, or only personal chats and groups? - Must the feature be free and keep end-to-end encryption fully intact? - Is it meant for every market, or for regions where a particular risk, such as unwanted contact from strangers, is especially common? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A goal for the feature tied to what WhatsApp needs, such as trust, retention, or more use of groups and business chats. - A segmentation of users by privacy risk, a reasoned choice of one segment, and pain points that existing controls leave open. - Several candidate features prioritized by impact, effort and fit with end-to-end encryption, ending in one clear recommendation. - Success metrics and guardrails, including abuse that the new feature itself could enable. - Rollout choices and risks such as defaults, discoverability and differences between countries. ### Follow-up Questions - If your feature lets people hide their phone number, how do you stop scammers from using it to avoid accountability? - Most people never open privacy settings. How would you make sure the people who need the feature actually find it? - How would you run an experiment when end-to-end encryption prevents you from seeing message content?