As many of you know, Facebook owns WhatsApp. Until now the two applications have remained independent of each other, but that could soon change. Is a process of merging the two apps about to begin? It is difficult to say for sure, but surely the two applications will soon begin to integrate their services, starting with the sharing of information.

The news came after developer Javier Santos announced that he discovered that in a future version of WhatsApp there will be an option to allow the application to share data with Facebook . This is not a simple intuition. Santos has in fact found this function in the new beta version of WhatsApp for Android, and has published the screenshot (shown below) on one of his social profiles.

According to when you read in the above screenshot message, the new feature says: “ Share my WhatsApp account information with Facebook to improve my Facebook experience. “

It is unclear what it exactly means, and there are no official statements about it yet. We can assume, however, that this new option has to do with the search for friends on Facebook through WhatsApp contacts (and perhaps vice versa) or, even more, with the advertising services linked to the two apps.

After the announcement that WhatsApp has become free for all and forever, in fact, we expect the application to find new ways to generate profit. One of these could be the exchange of information.

We will not see advertising on WhatsApp, that’s for sure, but our behavior on WhatsApp could “influence” the advertising we use through Facebook. A way to generate profits without being invasive, in full WhatsApp style.

In any case, the function is disabled by default , which means that users can choose whether to activate it or not, to the delight of those who do not like to share their data (even if anonymously, of course) or do not like to be “tracked” “From the apps it uses.

Now we just have to wait to see what really happens. As this is a beta version, we can’t be sure how or when this new feature will be implemented. Certainly, however, a signal has arrived. WhatsApp and facebook are increasingly “close” , but that was to be expected.