WhatsApp, the instant popular messaging app may soon witness a major change which may not be liked by most users. The popular Android and iOS chat app may start showing ads after the exit of its CEO Jan Koum. Brian Acton and Koum co-founded WhatsApp in 2009 and later sold it to Facebook in 2014. While Brian Acton has already left the company, Koum announced his retirement recently.
In a Facebook post, he said, "It is time to leave and take some time off to do things I enjoy outside of technology, such as collecting rare air-cooled Porsches, working on my cars and playing ultimate frisbee." Replying to Koum's post, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said that he would miss working closely with the WhatsApp co-founder.
Reportedly, with Koum's exit, Facebook is planning to aggressively promote ads on WhatsApp. Reportedly, there were differences between Facebook and Koum in relation to its user privacy as well as WhatsApp's encryption. Koum department is strongly believed to be the arrival of advertisements on the messaging platform. Unlike popular social networking or messaging sites like Facebook and Instagram, the only space where ads did not hold space was WhatsApp, however, that seems to be soon changed.
WhatsApp has more than 1.2 billion users worldwide. Last month, WhatsApp raised its minimum age for users in the European Union to 16 years with new online privacy law on the way. The minimum age for users outside the EU still remains 13 years.
After the Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal, Facebook has pledged to change how it handles private data. The social media giant plans on rolling out changes for its users worldwide. But the change in the European law was planned prior to the recent privacy scandal.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 06, 2018 08:06 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).