Meta will not transform WhatsApp in Europe into an advertising platform until next year. The delay is due to privacy concerns.
European WhatsApp users can enjoy the application without ads for a few more months. This is according to Politico. The Irish Data Protection Commission, responsible for Meta’s practices, has been informed by the company that the rollout in Europe is not scheduled until 2026.
Privacy Questions
The delay is related to European data privacy regulations. The plan to integrate advertisements immediately caused an uproar among privacy organizations. Meta itself claims to have built the functionality “in the most privacy-focused way possible”. Since the feature in question will show personalized ads and is therefore by definition not privacy-focused, the word “possible” in that claim does a lot of heavy lifting.
The Irish authority will now examine with Meta if there are any potential issues. At this point, it’s too early to say whether the feature violates any regulations or not.
Broken Promise
A few days ago, it became known that Meta wants to use WhatsApp to serve ads to users. Advertisements will initially appear in the Status section of the app, and (not yet) in the chats. Whether it will stop there is unclear. The founders of WhatsApp promised at the time that the application would remain ad-free, and Mark Zuckerberg’s team seemed to initially honor that promise after the acquisition. That it’s now being broken will surprise few.
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The delay of a few months is not a cancellation. WhatsApp is evolving further and further away from its original purpose towards an advertising medium from which Meta can generate revenue. Those who want a pure messaging app without being treated as a product themselves can look to Signal. This nonprofit is co-funded by one of the original founders of WhatsApp, who regrets what has happened to his application.