WhatsApp’s latest proposed privacy policy changes have been met with a lot of backlash since it seems like the company will be handing over even more of your data to Facebook. Unfortunately, it looks like WhatsApp might have another privacy issue on their hands, where it appears that WhatsApp phone numbers can be searched on Google.
This is according to a series of tweets by security researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia who discovered that your phone numbers associated with WhatsApp web are being indexed by Google. This is actually not the first time this has happened, and according to Rajaharia, it’s apparently the third time.
Exactly whose fault this is is unclear. This is because as the researcher points out, WhatsApp had actually included a text file called “Robots.txt” that is supposed to stop Google from indexing its websites, but for whatever reason, it doesn’t seem to work. Is it WhatsApp’s fault for not making sure that this is happening, or is Google at fault for ignoring these rules?
This is kind of worrying as we’re sure that many of us do not appreciate having our personal and private phone numbers blasted all over Google. Hopefully this is an issue that will be rectified quickly.
Filed in . Read more about Facebook, Google, Privacy, Social Hit and Whatsapp. Source: lowyat.net