How to select a location when looking for businesses
Note: This feature may not be available in your area yet.
You have two choices when searching for businesses:
- Share your current location. The location data remains stored on your phone, and will only refresh if you share your location again. WhatsApp cannot see your location, nor can businesses in the directory. Business results are ranked by distance and other signals, and you can erase your stored location from your phone at any time.
- Select a neighborhood. This is helpful for people who don’t want to share their device’s location, and is equally helpful for people searching for businesses near where they work, or where a friend may live.
About location privacy
Your specific location remains stored on your phone. Before WhatsApp uses your location data to help you find nearby businesses, your location is converted into an imprecise location so WhatsApp does not know exactly where you are. The broad search results are then sent back to your phone and ranked by distance to the exact location, as well as other signals. This way, WhatsApp servers never see your specific whereabouts.
Note: When you start a chat with a business you found through the find businesses, the business will get a notification from WhatsApp telling them that you found them using find businesses. Your location stays private and is not seen by the business or WhatsApp.
Change your location
WhatsApp will default to the location selected when you last searched for businesses. You can always clear that location and set a new one.
- From the business search screen, tap the location.
- Tap More options > Clear location > CLEAR.
- WhatsApp will use your phone number to determine your general location. To select a specific location, tap SET LOCATION.
- Tap Use current location or select a neighborhood from the list.
Stop sharing your location
You are in control of whether you’d like to share your location and you can stop sharing your location at any time.
To stop sharing your location on WhatsApp
- Open Settings on your mobile device.
- Tap Location > App access to location > WhatsApp.
- Select Deny.