Roughly 48 hours ago, a site called Digital Trends posted a rumor saying Google is in talks to buy WhatsApp for $1 billion. For some strange reason, everyone on the internet covered the rumor. I didn’t, because I never even heard of Digital Trends until yesterday. Neeraj Arora, WhatsApp’s Business Development Head pinged AllThingsD just now to tell them the rumor is indeed bullshit.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Google can build a WhatsApp clone over the weekend if they wanted to. In fact, there are rumors out there saying Google is going to announce a new messaging client called “Babel” at their annual I/O conference next month.

Not touching the Google buying WhatsApp rumor until it gets reported by the WSJ or Reuters. When those two publish it, it’s legit.

— Stefan Constantine (@WhatTheBit) April 8, 2013