{"id":192861,"date":"2025-06-17T22:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T22:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/192861\/"},"modified":"2025-06-17T22:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T22:57:09","slug":"whatsapps-rollout-of-ads-will-change-the-app-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/192861\/","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp\u2019s rollout of ads will change the app forever"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, WhatsApp did something its founders said it would never do: it\u2019s putting advertisements inside the app<\/a>. It ends WhatsApp\u2019s decade-plus run of offering an ad-free messaging and calling experience.<\/p>\n

Meta, which acquired WhatsApp in 2014, attempted to justify the decision by saying ads will be sequestered to its \u201cUpdate\u201d tab, where you\u2019ll see some sponsored status updates. WhatsApp\u2019s status feature allows users to share photos, videos, and text messages that disappear after 24 hours \u2014 but now you\u2019ll see ones from businesses, too. \u201cIf you only use WhatsApp to chat with friends and loved ones there is no change to your experience at all,\u201d Meta writes in its announcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the rollout of ads in its status feature could be just the beginning for Meta, which raked in more<\/a> than $160 billion in ad revenue from across Facebook and Instagram in 2024. Meta says its ads are built with \u201cprivacy in mind\u201d and won\u2019t draw from your personal messages, calls, and statuses, which will remain encrypted. Instead, WhatsApp is limiting ad targeting to elements like your city, country, language, the channels you\u2019re following, and the way you interact with the ads. Still, bringing targeted ads to the platform at all is at odds with its identity as a \u201csecure\u201d messaging app \u2014 a principle its founders aimed to uphold.<\/p>\n

WhatsApp co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton have made their stance on advertising very clear. \u201cRemember, when advertising is involved you the user<\/strong> are the product,\u201d a 2012 WhatsApp blog post reads<\/a>. Koum also kept a note from<\/a> Acton taped to his desk that read, \u201cNo Ads! No Games! No Gimmicks!\u201d as a reminder of what kind of app they should be building.<\/p>\n

Just two years following Meta\u2019s acquisition of WhatsApp, the app transitioned from charging 99 cents per year to a completely free model<\/a>. At the time, WhatsApp said<\/a> it would still offer an experience \u201cwithout third-party ads and spam.\u201d<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, Meta and Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s continued push for targeted advertising drove Koum and Acton out of the company<\/a>. \u201cTargeted advertising is what makes me unhappy,\u201d Acton said during a 2018 interview with Forbes<\/a> in which he explained his departure. In the years since, Meta has waffled on bringing ads to WhatsApp. It pulled the plug on its idea in 2020<\/a> but later brought up the possibility<\/a> in 2023 before rolling ads out to users now. WhatsApp is also rolling out the ability to subscribe to channels, and for businesses to pay for top spots on its \u201cExplore\u201d page for channels.<\/p>\n

The reality is, Meta\u2019s businesses are built on advertising. It couldn\u2019t help but launch ads on Threads<\/a> earlier this year, and is planning to launch AI ad tools<\/a> to help companies make more ads. Meta also brought its AI chatbot to WhatsApp, where users can interact with the bot in group messages, ask questions, and generate images. The company says<\/a> it can read messages that \u201cmention @Meta AI, or that people choose to share with Meta AI,\u201d raising privacy concerns that WhatsApp aims to fix with private AI chats<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is another betrayal of the privacy protections that once distinguished WhatsApp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Launching targeted advertising only adds to these concerns. \u201cThis is another betrayal of the privacy protections that once distinguished WhatsApp and attracted many of its users to the platform,\u201d John Davisson, the director of litigation at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), says in a statement to The Verge. \u201cMeta has taken a service that promised no ads and minimal data collection and warped it into one more tentacle of its surveillance advertising empire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many aren\u2019t happy about the addition of ads, with some users on Reddit saying that they plan to switch to Signal\u2019s ad-free app<\/a> due to the change. \u201cFriendly reminder to people. Signal is a superior product built for good,\u201d one user writes<\/a>. Another comment<\/a>, upvoted more than 3,500 times, says: \u201cThe moral of the story: Never trust the Zuck. Meta\/Facebook promised to never add advertising to WhatsApp when they acquired the app for $19bln.\u201d There are still some users<\/a> indifferent to the change because it affects a tab they use less frequently.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe online advertising ecosystem has been shown time and again to fuel widespread privacy and security violations,\u201d Bill Budington, the senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tells The Verge. \u201cWhile it is not a surprising move for Meta, it is putting WhatsApp\u2019s 3 billion users at unnecessary risk, all for the sake of a monetization strategy no one asked for and no one wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

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