Whatsapp blamed own users for failure to keep phone number repo off Google searches

Athul Jayaram, a self-described “full time bug bounty hunter”, published a blog post earlier this week highlighting that a large number of Whatsapp users’ mobile numbers could easily be found by searching Google for the domain “wa.me”.

Whatsapp has suffered from security and privacy problems in the recent past – some big, some less so, and some downright scary. Facebook, its owner, makes a big deal out of its security features including end-to-end encryption. Technical security is no good if you’re going to let the world’s biggest search engine, run by the world’s biggest advertising technology company, hoover up your users’ phone numbers by exposing them in plaintext on one of your websites.