On May 18, 2017, the European Commission announced that it was fining Facebook €110 million for “providing misleading information about WhatsApp takeover” in 2014. (The word “telegram” appeared in WhatsApp’s code.) Some considered it an anti-competitive measure; WhatsApp offered no explanation. He also said that new mobile phones would be sold in Germany with the WhatsApp brand, and that their ultimate goal was to be on all smartphones. Three days after announcing the Facebook purchase, Koum said they were working to introduce voice calls. Sequoia Capital received an approximate 5,000% return on its initial investment. At the time, it was the largest acquisition of a venture-capital-backed company in history.
In January 2022, an unsealed surveillance application revealed that WhatsApp started tracking seven users from China and Macau in November 2021, based on a request from US DEA investigators. As the complaint was heavily redacted due to being an ongoing case, it did not disclose whether this was alleged tampering with the app’s end-to-end encryption, or Google accessing user backups.clarification needed However, the company did not reveal names of the end users, which according to a research by Citizen Lab include, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. In November 2019, WhatsApp released a new privacy feature that let users decide who can add them to groups. The feature has to be turned on by the user and provides the option to encrypt the backup either with a password or a 64-digit encryption key. They expressed the concern that regular WhatsApp users still could not tell the difference between end-to-end encrypted messages and regular messages.
BiP – Messenger, Video Call
In December 2021, WhatsApp changed the default setting from “everyone” to only people in the user’s contacts or who have been conversed with (“nobody” is also an option). On February 24, 2017, WhatsApp launched a new Status feature similar to Snapchat and Facebook stories. However, the WhatsApp privacy policy does not apply in the EU, since it violates the principles of GDPR. In March 2020, WhatsApp partnered with the World Health Organization and UNICEF to provide messaging hotlines for people to get information on the COVID-19 pandemic. On November 25, 2019, WhatsApp announced an investment of $250,000 through a partnership with Startup India to provide 500 startups with Facebook ad credits of $500 each. In September 2017, WhatsApp’s co-founder Brian Acton left the company to start a nonprofit group, later revealed as the Signal Foundation, which developed the WhatsApp competitor Signal.
Third-party clients
This new encryption feature added an additional layer of protection to chat backups stored either on Apple iCloud or Google Drive. The enforcement of the privacy policy was postponed from February 8 to May 15, 2021, daman game app WhatsApp announced they had no plans to limit the functionality of the app for those who did not approve the new terms. Previously, users could opt-out of such data sharing, but the new policy removed this option. In January 2021, WhatsApp announced an updated privacy policy which stated that WhatsApp would share user data with Facebook and its “family of companies” beginning February 2021. When a user deletes media for everyone, WhatsApp does not delete images saved in the iOS camera roll and so those users are able to keep the images. WhatsApp was criticized by security researchers and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for using backups that are not covered by end-to-end encryption and allow messages to be accessed by third-parties.
Google Meet
Similar to the WhatsApp Web format, the app, which synchronises with a user’s mobile device, is available for download on the website. Previously the WhatsApp user’s handset had to be connected to the Internet for the browser application to function but as of an update in October 2021 (and integrated by default in WhatsApp as of April 2022) that is no longer the case. Linked devices allow the service to be used on multiple other platforms like desktop computers and smartwatches (e.g. WhatsApp Web, Facebook Portal), but also on other smartphones (called companions). They link to and sync with WhatsApp actively running on a supported primary phone.
A personal device of the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, had been compromised by a security breach, and it was claimed that it could not be switched on to recover messages. The researchers notified, Meta (who updated the enumeration problem in October), and deleted their copy of the phone numbers. On November 29, 2021, an FBI document was uncovered by Rolling Stone, revealing that WhatsApp responds to warrants and subpoenas from law enforcement within minutes, providing user metadata to the authorities. The new privacy policy would not apply within the EU, as it is illegal under the GDPR. On December 16, 2020, a claim that WhatsApp gave Google access to private messages was included in the anti-trust case against the latter.
These could be a social networking service like Facebook, a messaging service, maybe search and other things like weather. The idea, he said, is to develop a group of basic internet services that would be free of charge to use – “a 911 for the internet”. The acquisition was influenced by the data provided by Onavo, Facebook’s research app for monitoring competitors and trending usage of social activities on mobile phones, as well as startups that were performing “unusually well”. The idea started off as an app that would display statuses in a phone’s Contacts menu, showing if a person was at work or on a call. The service was created by WhatsApp Inc. of Mountain View, California, which was acquired by Facebook in February 2014 for approximately US$19.3 billion. Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age.
- Voice calls between two accounts were added to the app in March and April 2015.
- In November 2023, WhatsApp added a “voice chat” feature for groups with more than 32 members.
- Previously, users could opt-out of such data sharing, but the new policy removed this option.
On February 19, 2014, one year after the venture capital financing round at a $1.5 billion valuation, Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms) agreed to acquire the company for US$19 billion, its largest acquisition to date. That year, the company had $148 million in expenses and a net loss of $138 million. In April 2011, Sequoia Capital invested about $8 million for more than 15% of the company, after months of negotiation by Sequoia partner Jim Goetz. Koum then hired a friend in Los Angeles, Chris Peiffer, to develop a BlackBerry version, which arrived two months later. Although Acton was working on another startup idea, he decided to join the company. Koum updated WhatsApp so that everyone in the user’s network would be notified when a user’s status changed.
The company also announced plans to implement reactions, the ability for administrators to delete messages in groups and voice calls up to 32 participants. In October 2023, support for logging in to multiple (meaning two) accounts was added, allowing users to switch between different WhatsApp accounts in the same app. In October 2019, WhatsApp officially launched a new fingerprint app-locking feature for Android users. In November 2024, the ability to transcribe voice messages was added, allowing users to read out what was said in a voice message, rather than listening to the audio. In March 2024, Meta announced that WhatsApp would let third-party messaging services enable interoperability with WhatsApp, a requirement of the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). This led many users to delete WhatsApp and instead use services such as Signal and Telegram.
imo-International Calls & Chat
Previously between March 2016 and May 2017, only limited file types categorised as images (JPG, PNG, GIF), videos (MP4, AVI), and documents (CSV, DOC/DOCX, PDF, PPT/PPTX, RTF, TXT, XLS/XLSX), were allowed to be shared for file attachments. In July 2017, WhatsApp added support for file uploads of all file types, with a limit of 100 MB. Voice messages sent this way are deleted after the recipient listens to them the first time.
Similar apps
The hack, allegedly developed by Israeli surveillance technology firm NSO Group, injected malware onto WhatsApp users’ phones via a remote-exploit bug in the app’s Voice over IP calling functions. An integer overflow bug allowed a malicious user to take full control of the victim’s application once a video call between two WhatsApp users was established. There were a series of incidents between 2017 and 2020, after which WhatsApp announced changes for Indian users of the platform that labels forwarded messages as such.
- In April 2017, nearly 300 WhatsApp groups with about 250 members each were reportedly being used to mobilize stone-pelters in Jammu and Kashmir to disrupt security forces’ operations at encounter sites.
- The bug was discovered by Check Point in August 2019 and reported to WhatsApp.
- On February 19, 2014, one year after the venture capital financing round at a $1.5 billion valuation, Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms) agreed to acquire the company for US$19 billion, its largest acquisition to date.
- This ability (named multi-device support) began testing in July 2021 and rolled out to all users in April 2023.
After financial regulators in many regions raised concerns, Facebook stated that the currency, renamed Diem since December 2020, would require a government-issued ID for verification, and the wallet app would have fraud protection. This “Facebook coin” would reportedly be a stablecoin pegged to the value of a basket of different foreign currencies. The project reportedly involved more than 50 engineers under the direction of former PayPal president David A. Marcus. On February 28, 2019, The New York Times reported that Facebook was “hoping to succeed where Bitcoin failed” by developing an in-house cryptocurrency that would be incorporated into WhatsApp. The service became generally available in India and Brazil, and in Singapore for WhatsApp Business transactions only.
In September 2017, security researchers reported to The New York Times that the WhatsApp service had been completely blocked in China. Another application called GB WhatsApp is considered malicious by cybersecurity firm Symantec because it usually performs some unauthorized operations on end-user devices. The message reportedly contained a malicious file, the receipt of which resulted in Bezos’ phone being hacked.
In 2015, some third-party WhatsApp clients that were reverse-engineering the WhatsApp mobile app, received a cease and desist to stop activities that were violating WhatsApp legal terms. The army recommended that all army personnel use Threema instead, as the service is based in Switzerland. Once again, the block was lifted following an appeal, after less than 24 hours. On May 2, 2016, mobile providers in Brazil were ordered to block WhatsApp for 72 hours for the service’s second failure to cooperate with criminal court orders. WhatsApp is owned by Meta, whose main social media service Facebook has been blocked in China since 2009.
Unlike their 32-person group calls, starting a voice chat does not call all group members directly; they instead receive a notification to join the voice chat. Voice calls between two accounts were added to the app in March and April 2015. Edited messages were tagged as “edited” to inform recipients that the content had been modified. In October 2018, the “Swipe to Reply” option was added to the Android beta version, 16 months after it was introduced for iOS.
In November 2023, WhatsApp also began rolling out support for sending login codes to a linked email address, rather than via SMS. This was implemented only on Samsung phones, with plans to expand to Android and iOS “soon”. In August 2021, WhatsApp launched a feature that allows chat history to be transferred between mobile operating systems.
Meta Quest
In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client. Privacy practices may vary based, for example, on the features you use or your age. The developer, WhatsApp Inc., indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below.
The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has prohibited local banks from using instant messaging applications like WhatsApp for customer communication. In August 2021, the digital rights organization Access Now reported that WhatsApp along with several other social media apps was being blocked in Zambia for the duration of the general election. The ban was prompted by concerns of US authorities potentially accessing user data for such apps because of the CLOUD Act. On May 9, 2014, the government of Iran announced that it had proposed to block the access to WhatsApp service to Iranian residents.