There have been speculations about WhatsApp status showing ads since last year. After Matt Navarra sparked a Twitter storm in 2019 announcing that WhatsApp may start monetising the platform, in October, WhatsApp Vice President Chris Daniels confirmed that the messenger will soon start to put advertisements in its "Status" feature.
The first look for the ads in the platform was also shown off in the FMS19 conference in Berlin.
While a definite timeline has not been shared, ads are supposed to start rolling out on the messaging app starting this year.
Daniel had announced a few months ago, "We are going to be putting ads in Status. That is going to be primary monetisation mode for the company as well as an opportunity for businesses to reach people on WhatsApp."
More details about the ads on the platform are awaited but, per media reports, the advertisements would be powered by Facebook's native advertising system and would be aimed at helping users understand and participate in businesses using the messaging app.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's goal to monetise WhatsApp has forced the social media messaging service's co-founders to leave the company.
One of them, Brian Acton, recently said that Zuckerberg was in a rush to make money from the messaging service and undermine elements of its encryption technology. "Targeted advertising is what makes me unhappy," Acton said.
WhatsApp has over 1.5 billion users globally, including around 400 million in India.
Besides WhatsApp founders, the news for advertisement on the platform didn't fly too well among the users as well. When the news first came out about Facebook monetising WhatsApp, many users threatened to leave the messenger.
Sometimes i think it's time to leave Whatsapp
— Mastermaker (@Meistermacher72) May 21, 2019
move to telegram
— Diko Rommel (@DikoRommel1) May 21, 2019
I think it's time for us the users to move to Telegram
— 🇩🇴Victor🔰Marvell🇩🇴 (@VictorMarvell) May 21, 2019
Implementation of ads questions privacy. WhatsApp says it cannot access your data because of a promised end-to-end encryption for all users. However, by simple logic, playing ads will require WhatsApp to access that data so that ads can be targeted. Ads cannot be practically relevant without any consumer data.