WhatsApp is all set to undergo a change which in any case was been anticipated for sometime, that of ads appearing in the app. The messaging company though said the ads will be shown in the user’s status section, which fortunately isn’t appearing in the main messaging section itself. So one way to avoid them is to not view them in the first place.
WhatsApp also said the move to place ads within the app will likely help businesses have the means to communicate directly with the consumers. Something along these lines was already debilitated for past several months with things finally taking on a concrete shape on this eventually. Also, from what is known at the moment, the ads will appear to post an update that likely will arrive in early 2019.
WhatsApp has been available for free since 2016 before which the app required a nominal subscription fee of 99 cents to be paid annually. That was two years after Facebook had acquired the app in a deal worth a whopping $19 bn. However, the company has famously stated in 2016 the app would remain ad-free though we are getting to see a reversal of that within the next two years.
Fortunately for the users, the ads would be coming at the expense of the business and not the users themselves. For the latter group, the only pain they will have to endure if it can be so said is to endure the ads. Also, while it is known those are going to be placed in the Stories section, the rest of the details aren’t known. Like whether those are going to be specifically targeted to a user or group and so on.
Targeted advertising is also something that has raised suspicions in several quarters given Facebook’s rather dismal record of adhering to user’s privacy. WhatsApp had also adopted a stringent encryption method that too is believed to be at risk of being compromised as Facebook in its quest to gather user info to allow for targeted advertising. Worth mentioning, both Acton and Koum, the co-founders of WhatsApp have left Facebook in the past one year or so in what is believed to be the way Facebook aims to monetize the app or deal with user privacy and so on.
