Google removes group WhatsApp chat links
Free availability of the links on search engine not safe
image for illustrative purpose
New Delhi: Concerned at private group chat links being available on Google Search, WhatsApp on Monday said that they have asked Google not to index such chats and advised users not to share group chat links on publicly accessible websites.
Google had indexed invite links to private WhatsApp group chats, meaning anyone can join various private chat groups with a simple search.
The indexed WhatsApp group chat links have now been removed from Google.
Independent cybersecurity researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia on Sunday shared screenshots with IANS showing indexing of WhatsApp group chat invites on Google.
"Since March 2020, WhatsApp has included the "noindex" tag on all deep link pages which, according to Google, will exclude them from indexing. We have given our feedback to Google to not index these chats," a WhatsApp spokesperson told a reporter.
"Links that users wish to share privately with people they know and trust should not be posted on a publicly accessible website," the company spokesperson added.
The issue first cropped up in February last year when app reverse-engineer Jane Wong found that Google has around 470,000 results for a simple search of "chat.whatsapp.com", part of the URL that makes up invites to WhatsApp groups.
