Whatsapp vs Viber – Who got a better deal?

Interesting company behind Google Voice

I don't think they are that stupid. Would surely lose a chunk of their user base.

But you never know with companies becoming overconfident...

If you think that was their intention with this acquisition, you're mistaken. WhatsApp poses a threat to traditional social networking, and Facebook obviously wants a leg in that race.

don't forget the location data.

you might see 'last seen on 14:29 at the local deli' on Whatsapp from now on!

I would call that extra layer of data peanuts in an ocean...

The Facebook app can already: -read your SMS messages

-modify/read your contacts

-read/write your call log

-read the contents of your storage

-retrieve running apps (i.e. it knows every app you have installed on your device, given enough time)

There's so much talk about how Google knows its users better than anyone else, but I think there's little doubt that Facebook gets the throne as far as data collection goes. And lets not forget that in addition to all the above data Facebook knows the 99% of your browsing activity and even when you opened a certain website.

There's really nothing more they can take from us, so I highly doubt this acquisition was meant to bolster their data collection capabilites.