WhatsApp Fixes Glitch Showing Users’ Public Groups on Google

The glitch allowed anyone to access your WhatsApp public groups through Google searches.

Image used for representation only.

(File Photo: IANS)

A major glitch has been reported by Internet Security Researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia, which allows anyone to access your WhatsApp public groups through Google searches.

The same issue was reported in 2019 and has surfaced again.

Around 1 am on 11 January, WhatsApp fixed the issue and removed all the group links displayed on Google.

Rajaharia said Whatsapp did not use robot.txt and hence search crawlers indexed the content on Google.

A WhatsApp spokesperson said, "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. As a reminder, whenever someone joins a group, everyone in that group receives a notice and the admin can revoke or change the group invite link at any time".

Like all content that is shared in searchable, public channels, invite links that are posted publicly on the internet can be found by other WhatsApp users. Links that users wish to share privately with people they know and trust should not be posted on a publicly accessible website.

WhatsApp Spokesperson