As the latest entrant into the instant messenger platform, Google Allo has been raking in the downloads, and along with it has been brewing a controversy over its retaining of users' chat data on its servers.
Ever since Google made the announcement in May regarding the chat messenger and its video chat app brother 'duo', there has been privacy concerns raised about the storing of users' chat data on its servers for all non-incognito chats.
This depending on which country you live in, your chats would turn out to be electronic evidence which could be used against you by law enforcement and courts,unless you chat incognito.
Earlier this year, whistle blower Edward Snowden too had asked users to stay away from this platform while questioning Google on why end-to-end encryption is not enabled by default
Google has said that some changes have been made from earlier announced to accommodate the smart assistant reply feature which would use data patterns and chat history to preempt smart conversations between users using the Messenger's smart assistant features.
As compared to its video chat brother 'duo' which offers end-to-end encryption, Allo doesn't encrypt user data and chats by default as compared to Whatsapp and other instant messenger platforms like Telegram.
Google will store almost all the chat data on its servers unless the users choose to chat in incognito mode or the user deletes the chats, according to reports in technology website, The Verge.