Before WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $19 billion, the policy for the platform was “No ads! No games! No gimmicks!” Those days seem to be over. Meta Platforms, which now owns WhatsApp, is bringing ads to the platform. It will show ads and promotions in an area of the app called Updates, which is used by around 1.5 billion people a day.
Get set for Channel subscriptions, promoted Channels and ads in Status. The first feature will help you support your favourite channel through subscription to receive exclusive updates for a monthly fee. Promoted Channels will be about discovering new channels that might be interesting to you when you’re looking through the directory. For the first time, admins have a way to increase their Channel’s visibility.
Finally, there will be ads in Status, helping users find a new business and start a conversation with them about a product or service they’re promoting in Status.
Users and businesses use Status to share photos, videos, voice notes and text with their mutual contacts that last 24 hours. Now, consider a situation where you own a business and you want to get discovered by new customers. In such a situation, ads in Status may help.
Personal messaging experience
It brings us to the question of privacy. Ads will appear in the Updates tab, in Status and Channels where people discover things that are new. But the personal messaging experience on WhatApp remains unchanged, and personal messages, calls and statuses are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be used to show ads.
Your personal messages, calls, and statuses cannot be seen (or heard) by anyone, not even Meta.
How will the ads in Status or Channels be relevant to the user? Meta will use limited information like your country or city, language, the Channels you’re following, and how you interact with the ads you see. For those who have chosen to add WhatsApp to Accounts Centre, Meta will use those ad preferences and info from across your Meta accounts.
Meta has said user phone numbers will never be sold or shared with advertisers. Personal messages, calls and groups you are in will not be used to determine the ads you may see.
Rumours of Meta bringing advertising to WhatsApp has been floating around for years. It was an idea the founders of the platform — Brian Acton and Jan Koum — were against.
Since the two left the company seven years ago, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, has been focused on the growth of WhatsApp. Placing ads in WhatsApp opens an opportunity for the company, which has been spending billions on artificial intelligence and other avenues.
“We work hard to protect the privacy of people’s communications,” said Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp, in a statement to The New York Times. “Some people only use WhatsApp for private chats and calls, and nothing is changing about that.”
WhatsApp said user privacy is of utmost importance. A few days ago, WhatsApp joined Apple in a legal fight against regulators in Britain who have been trying to break encryption across messaging apps.