Ask HN: Why WhatsApp allows anyone in the world to know whether I'm online

6 points by 28194608 4y ago ↗ HN

This haunts me and many websites selling services to monitor users. * I'm not talking about "last seen" feature.

2 comments

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As far as I know, WhatsApp builds upon XMPP, a protocol which also includes presence (the first P of XMPP). Good XMPP clients let you choose which contacts can receive presence stanzas. WhatsApp is not one of them (it also does not federate). Use Conversations instead.

28194608 4y ago ↗

So Whatsapp devs are incompetent to disable that feature?