WhatsApp is an application for smartphones that allows a service of instant messaging between mobile platforms. WhatsApp has been able to become part of our daily life, using the name even as a verb in a sentence (let me WhatsApp you when I get out of class). Even after being recognized by several companies as the biggest disaster known in terms of security, the acceptance of the application in the community has been undeniable. Recently, rumors have said that WhatsApp has been having serious conversations with Facebook to contemplate the probability of the acquisition of the app. Would that transaction improve the safety and security of the application? Would the application improve overall? And of course the biggest question of all, does WhatsApp want to be bought at all?
It is simple to see why Facebook, a free social network sustained by advertising and that is lately showing a big interest in the mobile market, is interested in an application such as WhatsApp. Facebook already bought Instagram, making its way into the sphere of mobile platforms. WhatsApp is a paid application ($0.99 in iOS and only free for the first year in Android) free of advertising and with a widespread presence in different markets, cultures, and languages.
If the transaction goes through, it would be a very shocking one; especially since one of the owners of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, has publicly expressed his hostile position towards advertising and companies that have as a goal being bought. Nevertheless, as we have seen several times in the past, the power of money has been able to modified strict minds.
The owners of WhatsApp have shown a lot of concern to improve and develop new techniques to solve the security breaches that the product currently has.Even after first implementing encryption in August of this year, their encryption has already been broken, and practically anybody is able to “sniff incoming and outgoing messages”. All these breaches need to be fixed before this app becomes a reliable source for the transfer of information, although many people are not aware of the dangers associated with this product.
If Facebook ends up buying the app, it would be, without a doubt, an extremely high price. WhatsApp is the third most popular paid app in the App Store and it has over 7 millions downloads in Google Play. It has over a billions messages exchange daily and an almost ubiquitous presence in the entire world. Moreover, Facebook would have to keep an eye on many eastern-based applications that are arisen such as Kakao Talk, LINE, and WeChat; all of which have already millions of users worldwide.
Maybe this deal goes through, maybe not; but whatever happens, the app needs to have an improvement of security to finally settle its power on the market and destroy competition once and for all.