WhatsApp breaks promise and starts inserting ads

Barcelona"No ads! No games! No gimmicks!" The founders of WhatsApp used this slogan to promote their messaging service back in 2012. When, two years later, Mark Zuckerberg bought them for $19 billion, Brian Acton wrote this same phrase to his colleague Jan Koum, so that he could put it in a visible place on his desktop so that they would not forget his vision and Meta, also the owner of Facebook and Instagram, among others. However, reality prevails and the company has announced that the arrival of ads to the application is imminent.

This advertising will currently only appear in the updates tab, where users can add a short sentence indicating their status or upload a short video, in the style of the stories Instagram, and which disappear after 24 hours. According to the company, there are approximately 1.5 billion people who consult this section of the application, out of a total of 2 billion. From now on, starting in the United States, these updates will not only be for the user's contacts, but also for those who have contracted to appear for promotion.

Meta is a company that managed to generate $160 billion in advertising revenue through Facebook and Instagram last year, making it one of the biggest advertising giants: it is estimated to control up to 15% of digital advertising. And now it is looking to grow by also bringing its business model to WhatsApp, which until now was untouched. In fact, the idea of incorporating ads into the messaging service has been seriously considered at least twice—in 2016 and 2019—since Zuckerberg bought the service, but they had ultimately backed out even though the designs were already ready. Acton and Koum's departures from the company were, in fact, related to those plans. Now things are getting serious, and the announcement is official.

The news has raised questions about the privacy of this operation. WhatsApp admits that in order to serve more personalized ads, it will collect some user data, such as the device's default language and location. But it assures that it will not look at users' interlocutors or the content of the messages exchanged. It also states that it has no plans to insert advertising into personal chats and one-on-one conversations: "If you only use WhatsApp to chat with friends and loved ones, your experience will not change." In its newsletter, it also assures that it will never share a user's phone number with any advertiser.

WhatsApp Vice President Nikila Srinivasan said in the New York Times: "Thinking through the lens of privacy has been incredibly important in considering how we bring these features to market. Personal messages, calls, and statuses will remain end-to-end encrypted." Another new development is the introduction of monthly subscriptions to content creators' channels, following in the footsteps of other networks like X, YouTube, and Twitch. The app will allow creators to advertise their channels in case they want to boost their audience. Meta, which validates whether a creator can enter the program—basically, if they have enough followers—gets a cut of the subscriptions they get.

Until now, WhatsApp made money from the transfer service it has implemented in countries like India, Brazil, and Singapore, and from the paid version of the app, designed for businesses and companies that want to interact with their customers through this channel. Introducing ads could represent a radical paradigm shift, since Meta's business is primarily advertising.

In Europe, in 2026

Although the implementation schedule for the ads is somewhat vague—the company says it will be gradual over the coming months—it has been revealed that in the European Union, advertising will not begin to infiltrate the app until next year. This was explained by Meta to the privacy regulator in Ireland, the country where the company operates. big tech has its headquarters in Europe. One of the main concerns is data cross-referencing. That is, the tech giant taking advantage of everything it knows about a user through their Instagram or Facebook profile to then personalize ads for them. What is acceptable and what transparency mechanisms should be applied?

According to the Irish regulator, Meta intends to meet with European counterparts to discuss these issues before bringing them to EU territory. Privacy concerns.

Since 2018, Meta has accumulated fines totaling more than €2.8 billion, many of them urged by the Irish regulator. Personal data of European users in the United States.