Uncrunched

Separately, Whisper has been following a user claiming to be a sex-obsessed lobbyist in Washington DC. The company’s tracking tools allow staff to monitor which areas of the capital the lobbyist visits. “He’s a guy that we’ll track for the rest of his life and he’ll have no idea we’ll be watching him,” the same Whisper executive said. – The Guardian

As far as I can tell from what The Guardian has alleged, and from Whisper’s denials, what happened is this:

1. When talking to potential partners, Whisper hypes its ability to track users so that those partners will know who the anonymous sources are and then write stories based on the data. The screenshot of the Whispers being written from (or near) the White House supports this (below), as does the quote above.

2. But when Whisper talks to the public, they say different things and deny that they track users (although I haven’t seen any comment denying the quote above, and only obfuscating comments about the screenshot).

The denials are strong, but 1 & 2 above can’t both be true. That means someone is lying, and based on what I’ve seen so far, and looking at who has what incentives, that someone is Whisper.

The additional information about Whisper working with the Department of Defense, and likely the Chinese government, are also huge stories on their own.

As an aside, I interviewed Whisper CEO Michael Heyward earlier this year at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York.