Facebook is looking to monetize WhatsApp and you may soon start seeing advertisements: Report

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WhatsApp may soon serve advertisements to its users and the feature has been spotted on the app for the iOS operating system.

WhatsApp, inarguably the preferred instant messaging platform for over a billion users around the world, is now reportedly testing a new feature that will affect user experience. The Facebook-owned app may serve advertisements to its users and the feature has been spotted on the app for the iOS operating system. WhatsApp, so far, has remained advertisement-free, and with the recent news, it will negatively impact user experience.

Alex Stamos, Chief Security Officer at Facebook tweeted “…Eventually, WhatsApp is going to need to generate revenue… This could come from directly charging for the service, it could come from advertising, it could come from a WeChat-like services play. This first is very hard across countries, the latter two are complicated by E2E.” From his statements, it is clear that Facebook plans to monetize WhatsApp. While charging for using WhatsApp seems to be out of the question, advertising might be the other alternative.

WABetainfo, which is a popular WhatsApp leaks portal, has disclosed in a series of tweets, that they have come across WhatsApp testing advertisements inside the Stories feature on its app. Similar to Instagram where users encounter an advertisement in between Stories, WhatsApp may implement a similar feature wherein after a set number of Stories, a user may see an ad. What’s interesting is that that they spotted the feature first on the iOS operating system and not Android.

When WhatsApp co-founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum started their company, their motto was ‘No ads, no games, no gimmicks’. Prior to its acquisition by Facebook in 2014, WhatsApp charged its users a nominal fee on an annual basis, but was essentially ‘free’ and moreover did not serve advertisements. Brian Acton’s recent expose on Facebook-WhatsApp data sharing agreement, privacy policy and why he left the company leaving behind $850 million dollars has stirred quite the controversy.