Google and WhatsApp had a heated discussion in February last year. That’s when some public groups started appearing in Google search results. Member info from this WhatsApp group chat was seen in Google search. But, this problem was overcome. The group was also hidden. But, now once again some WhatsApp groups and profiles appear in Google search. This information was given by cybersecurity researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia.
At this time, users’ phone number and profile picture also appear in Google search. This means that if someone has a WhatsApp group URL, they can join it by searching on Google.
The report also states that users can join groups with links. Also see the phone numbers of the group members. In addition, group member posts can also be viewed by searching on Google. However, about 1500 group invite links are already available in the search results. Some groups indexed by Google are redirecting users to porn contacts. So some groups are of specific user interest.
The instant messenger app, owned by Facebook, does not use the robots.txt file for the chat.whatsapp.com subdomain, the expert said. Companies use robots.txt to prevent search crawlers from indexing content.
This includes the user’s profile image, its name. Users can view profiles by entering the country code on WhatsApp’s domain. According to reports, about 5,000 profiles are now public. According to Rajaharia, WhatsApp does not use the robots.txt file here. Currently, WhatsApp and Google have not provided any information about this.
