WhatsApp Ads Are Coming to the Updates Tab, But Your Private Conversations Stay Safe

WhatsApp has announced a significant shift: it will start showing ads within the app, but only in a specific section. Meta, WhatsApp's parent company, is launching advertisements in the "Updates" tab, where users can currently view status updates and follow channels.This move aims to generate new revenue from the platform's billions of users worldwide.

WhatsApp has assured users that private messaging remains unaffected. Ads will not appear in personal or group chats, or during calls."Your messages, calls, and statuses are still end-to-end encrypted and will remain private," the company stated in a blog post.

This change represents a significant departure from WhatsApp's original vision. When Jan Koum and Brian Acton founded the app in 2009, they promised it would be free of advertisements. However, as Meta (formerly Facebook) bought WhatsApp in 2014, efforts to monetise the app have gradually increased, and this is one of the major updates yet.

The ads shown will be targeted based on general information such as a user's age, location, language, and channel preferences. WhatsApp, on the other hand, has made it clear that it will not tailor these ads based on private messages or group activity.

Apart from ads, WhatsApp launched two other revenue-generating features.First one is Paid channel subscriptions allow channel owners to charge followers a monthly fee for exclusive content and the other one is Channel promotion - Businesses can pay to increase the visibility of their channels and gain new followers. 

With over 1.5 billion daily Updates tab users, WhatsApp's strategy has the potential to unlock a huge advertising opportunity. While this change may take some adjusting to, WhatsApp users can rest assured that their private conversations are still secure.

Information referenced in this article is from The Hindu