WhatsApp has long been spared, but all good things must come to an end: Meta's messaging service will be displaying advertising in the coming months. The app will soon be testing ads in the "News" tab, in Statuses. The ads will appear between two Statuses, like Stories in Instagram. Meta has indicated that these ads will only affect the public space of Statuses: discussions will not be affected... at least not until the group finds a way to exploit them, no doubt!
WhatsApp under surveillance in Europe
Added to this is a paid subscription system for content creators' channels, as well as the appearance of a "Featured Channels" section to promote certain creators. The ad-free model that has been WhatsApp's since its inception is well and truly over. But it will survive for a while in the European Union.
The Irish Data Protection Commission, responsible for enforcing the GDPR (the European data regulation), has been informed by Meta that advertising in WhatsApp will not be rolled out in the EU until next year. "This new product will not be launched on the European market until 2026," Commissioner Des Hogan confirmed, quoted by Politico. "We have been informed by WhatsApp and will be meeting with them to discuss any potential issues in more detail."
In its announcement, Meta was careful to explain that the advertising surge in WhatsApp was designed "in the most privacy-friendly way possible." Furthermore, data sharing between WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook will only take place if users give their consent by voluntarily linking all their accounts.
Meta had postponed harvesting European user data to train its AI models, while it tightened its grip on the same commission.
Source: Politico
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