People use WhatsApp to chat to their friends and family because it’s easy to use and private. But the encrypted app might not be as private as you think. This new development is likely to spook millions of users. WhatsApp group chats can be easily found via a Google search, because the search engine is indexing links to conversations intended to be private.
Google has indexed invite links to private WhatsApp group chats, meaning anyone can join various private chat groups (including several porn-sharing groups) with a simple search.
According to a report in Motherboard, invitations to WhatsApp group chats were being indexed by Google.
Journalist Jordan Wildon said on Twitter that he discovered that WhatsApp's "Invite to Group Link" feature lets Google index groups, making them available across the internet since the links are being shared outside of WhatsApp's secure private messaging service.
All it takes is a quick Google search and anyone can join a range of WhatsApp chats, including those meant to be private, according to esteemed tech site Vice which first broke the story.
Private WhatsApp conversations are usually only accessible via an invite code handed out to group members by the chat moderator. But this code is simply a string of text and a URL, and it seems that at least some of these are being indexed so they are findable by anyone via Google.
You can see if any of your private chats are visible by typing in chat.whatsapp.com and then adding in some detail relating to the group chat.
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