It's a mixed bag of good news and bad news for users of WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned chat app: the May 15 deadline for accepting WhatsApp's new privacy terms is no longer mandatory. However, users will gradually lose access to WhatsApp's features if they do not eventually agree to the policy.

As you may remember, WhatsApp introduced a new privacy policy at the beginning of the year, removing the ability to share data with Facebook and opt out. As you can imagine, this caused controversy among WhatsApp users and some users suspended their chat service; those who remained on WhatsApp had until May 15 to accept the policy or their accounts would be deleted.

Now WhatsApp says that this deadline is no longer strictly enforced, at least according to the FAQ posted by the company. It says, "Your account will not be deleted on May 15 or your WhatsApp functionality will no longer be available.

Instead, if you do not agree to WhatsApp's privacy policy, you will receive what the company calls "persistent reminders," which are basically annoying messages that appear every time you log into the app.

But this will change in a few weeks. At that point, you will still be able to answer incoming phone and video calls through WhatsApp, but you will lose access to your chat list. If you have notifications turned on, you can tap on them to read or reply to messages.

However, if you do not agree to the privacy policy after that, your incoming calls and notifications will also stop after a few weeks; WhatsApp says it will not delete your account if you do not agree to the privacy update.

For now, there is no way to accept the new privacy policy and remove your consent later, nor is there a way to avoid being affected by it. If you want to continue using the app, this seems to be the only way, at least for now.