 |
| Google makes private WhatsApp groups discoverable |
The report shows that anyone can find hundreds of thousands of WhatsApp groups and use Google to participate in certain Google searches.
Journalist Jordan Wildon said in his Twitter account that he found that the "WhatsApp group links" feature in WhatsApp allows Google to index and make groups available online, and that these links become private outside the news release service.
The reporter used a specific Google search to find specific groups, and the results included many private groups. For example, if you join a group identified by a non-governmental organization recognized by the United Nations, you can access all participants and their phone numbers.
The group administrator can revoke the group's link if necessary. However, Wildon notes that WhatsApp in this case will only create a new link and that unlinking the group will not necessarily damage the original link.
WhatsApp Group Links contains a warning reminding the person who created the link only to share it with trustworthy people. Wildon said: WhatsApp groups may not be as safe as you think.
Allison WhatsApp spokeswoman Alison Bonnie said: "Other WhatsApp users can find invitation links that have been posted publicly on the Internet as well as all content that is shared on public search channels."
"The links that users want to share privately with people they know and trust should not be published on public websites," she added.
Danny Sullivan from Google posted a tweet on Twitter showing that search engines like Google will list pages on the open internet, and this is no different from a website that can include URLs in public places. He added: "We provide tools that websites can use to block content included in our results."
Engineer (Jine Wong) was reportedly told in a tweet that with a simple search that is part of WhatsApp and forms the WhatsApp group URL, Google has found about 470,000 hits from the WhatsApp group (chat.whatsapp.com) the group invitation can be accessed.