Ask HN: Why WhatsApp allows anyone in the world to know whether I'm online
This haunts me and many websites selling services to monitor users.
* I'm not talking about "last seen" feature.
2 comments
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.
So Whatsapp devs are incompetent to disable that feature?