WhatsApp seems to be very aggressive in protecting its intellectual property and now the company has filed Cease & Desist orders against at least two apps that use native Android APIs to push messages through WhatsApp. The Lawyers team of WhatsApp has sent notices to the developers behind Can’t Talk and DirectChat.
Interestingly, both the notices interact with WhatsApp in an indirect manner, without the mention of any APIs. However, the details are vague at this moment and don’t specify which parts of the app actually violate the WhatsApp API terms. The company wants that both the apps remove any functionality that connects themselves to WhatsApp.
Then again, neither of these applications uses any code that relates to the WhatsApp service. As said above, nearly every claim in the letter is faulty to address how the apps violate these terms. This also brings up the fact that none of the developers behind the said apps agreed to any Terms of Services from WhatsApp. The developers of the app have seven days to comply or might face a lawsuit. Can’t Talk has been removed from PlayStore, while DirectChat is still available, but may be altered to remove access to the WhatsApp integration.