Facebook Aggressively Pushes SMS ‘Messenger,’ No Obvious Choice For Users

With the messaging war heating up in Silicon Valley, Facebook is wasting no time trying to get to the front of the line and reign supreme with their SMS “Messenger” integration. However, in their bid to carve a significant portion of the exploding market early, the social network might have made some choices that crossed a few lines. One of these lines is “Google Play’s” policies pertaining to the use of deceptive practices in terms of device settings because of how the setup seemingly removes the choice to decline the integration.

As Engadget puts it, there is now a growing concern that “Facebook” might have been a little overzealous when it came to implementing the changes regarding their “Messenger” app. This is because during the setup, the only visible options that users get are a big “OK” button and “Settings.” There are no corresponding “NO,” “Decline,” or “Back” buttons to indicate that the user refuses to proceed with the setup.

In order to keep things fair, Engadget asked Facebook about the issue and got a reply which states that the social network doesn’t agree that the practice is deceptive at all. Supposedly, users could still say no by going to the settings and making the corresponding commands there. However, the matter of being able to refuse is not as much of a problem as the fact that there’s no obvious way to do so.

Had there been a button that users can push in order to decline SMS “Messenger” integration, it wouldn’t have been an issue. As it is, it seems that Facebook is practically removing the choice for users to say no.

Android Headlines is particularly concerned about casual users who are not as familiar with app setups as techies. For them, the absence of a “No” button might as well be a sign to just accept the integration post-haste.