Jan Koum
WhatsApp to start showing ads to users in parts of messaging app
WhatsApp said Monday that users will start seeing ads in parts of the app, as owner Meta Platforms moves to cultivate a new revenue stream by tapping the billions of people that use the messaging service. Advertisements will be shown only in the app's Updates tab, which is used by as many as 1.5 billion people each day. However, they won't appear where personal chats are located, developers said. The personal messaging experience on WhatsApp isn't changing, and personal messages, calls and statuses are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be used to show ads, WhatsApp said in a blog post. It's a big change for the company, whose founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton vowed to keep the platform free of ads when they created it in 2009. Facebook purchased WhatsApp in 2014 and the pair left a few years later. Parent company Meta Platforms Inc. has long been trying to generate revenue from WhatsApp. WhatsApp said ads will be targeted to users based on information like their age, the country or
 "WhatsApp to start showing ads to users in parts of messaging app")
Facebook trying to weaken WhatsApp privacy? Co-founder Jan Koum quits
Jan Koum's plan to exit comes after clashing with the parent company over WhatApp's strategy and Facebook's attempts to use its personal data and weaken its encryption
 "Facebook trying to weaken WhatsApp privacy? Co-founder Jan Koum quits")
By leaving Facebook to play Frisbee, WhatsApp co-founder to lose $1 billion
The chief executive officer of messaging unit WhatsApp confirmed in a Facebook post-Monday afternoon that he was leaving the company
 "By leaving Facebook to play Frisbee, WhatsApp co-founder to lose $1 billion")
