Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu questions WhatsApp’s privacy claims, citing Meta’s ad-driven model as a conflict of interest. A lawsuit alleges end-to-end encryption is a facade, with Meta employees allegedly accessing messages. Tech leaders like Elon Musk and Pavel Durov also expressed skepticism, highlighting potential security flaws in the popular messaging app.
Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu has weighed in on the ongoing controversy surrounding WhatsApp’s encryption claims, pointing to a fundamental conflict of interest in Meta’s advertising-driven business model.
The 51-page lawsuit alleges that once Meta workers gain access, they can view messages in real-time through a widget, with no separate decryption required.
Communications director Andy Stone called the claims “categorically false and absurd,” stating that WhatsApp has used Signal protocol encryption for a decade. Workers need only submit a task request to the engineering team, which grants access “often without any scrutiny at all, according to the complaint. Meta, meanwhile, has not issued a formal public statement beyond calling the legal action a “frivolous work of fiction.”
The plaintiffs, from countries including Australia, India, Mexico, and South Africa, claim the company’s end-to-end encryption is essentially a facade. Meta has pushed back hard against the accusations. The lawsuit cites unnamed whistleblowers who allegedly reveal that Meta employees can request access to user messages through an internal system. Messages reportedly appear commingled with content from unencrypted sources, accessible from the moment users first activated their accounts. The lawsuit is seeking class-action status and damages.
His comments come after a lawsuit was filed in a US district court in San Francisco on Friday, accusing Meta of misleading billions of WhatsApp users about their privacy.