WhatsApp was co-founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton in 2009. Koum and Acton have strong values towards data protection and user privacy. However, since its acquisition by Facebook in 2014, the app has been subject to data and user privacy complaints.
Koum released a statement after the acquisition, which promised to keep user data protected and stated the importance of this to him personally. But Koum decided to leave the Facebook owned WhatsApp in 2018 – following a dispute over these exact values.
Two years before the Facebook takeover, Koum explained WhatsApp’s stance towards advertising by quoting the movie Fight Club: “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can by shit we don’t need…Remember, when advertising is involved, you the user are the end product.” Mr Acton, who left Facebook earlier in 2017, tweeted in March 2018: “It’s time. #deletefacebook.” and hasn’t posted anything since.
According to The New York Times, Koum was growing “increasingly concerned” by Facebook’s focus on collecting and selling user data. In 2016, WhatsApp introduced full end-to-end-encryption, meaning all messages, file transfers and voice calls are scrambled between users’ phones. But, with Koum’s departure, there have been concerns WhatsApp won’t stay so committed to the protection of users data or privacy.
It was feared that WhatsApp would start leveraging advertising at some point. And, a year after this report, it has been announced that WhatsApp will be introducing adverts in 2020. This was confirmed at Facebook’s annual Facebook Marketing Summit. Conference attendee Olivier Ponteville shared photos of the presentation. The ads appear to take up the entire screen of a smartphone, and offer users a call to action to find out more information by swiping up – this is unlikely to be a welcomed feature across the vast user base (over 1.5 billion active users at the start of 2019).
Following a series of data and privacy scandals, and now with the addition of advertising, it is worth considering moving away WhatsApp. Brain Acton has since turned his attention to private messaging app Signal, which is overseen as part of the not-for-profit Signal Foundation, founded in 2018. Signal is a better alternative to WhatsApp which you should consider switching to – it has end-to-end encryption, a fully transparent platform, a commitment to never using advertising, and does not monetise your messages/activity.
See also our previous post regarding why WhatsApp is not compliant for a work environment.