Many companies that I have worked with use VPN on all their equipment, including their phones, even carefully going so far as to
(properly) issue unique private certificates to every single device and to keep track of them all centrally. Then, they use a messaging application that communicates, through the VPN portal, with a company server. And the Sword of Damocles is hanging over the head of anyone and everyone who
doesn't use this method, exclusively, to discuss company business. Of course, every conversation is recorded for all time.
If you "simply want to talk to your buddies without casual eavesdropping," Wickr looks like a system that has been designed in the right way. However, I would still
presume that
somebody out there has the means to decipher your conversations. (Therefore, if you are discussing a drug-deal, you're out of luck ...
"and, you should be, you 
!") The difference is that "a helluva lot
fewer people will be able to do it."
Certainly, "Google has no business knowing about everything you say to anyone. Nor do they have the right to sell that data, even 'in aggregate,' to advertisers." (The Internet world-at-large has not figured that out yet, because this insane
national-security(!) vulnerability has not been exploited ... yet.) It is entirely within your rights to put your personal conversations "in a sealed envelope." Just as you
should be encrypting every significant e-mail that you send.
Best Skype alternatives for privacy instant messenger on ubuntu?
