WhatsApp may reportedly consider adding advertisements in the distant future. The report comes just months after a Wall Street Journal report earlier this year claimed the company dropped its plans to integrate ads and removed ad-related code.
According to The Information citing sources familiar with the matter, the company had decided to stop adding advertisements fearing user outrage and “antagonizing regulators”.
“Zuckerberg suspended the push to introduce ads to the messaging app partly because Facebook wanted to avoid antagonizing regulators, according to people familiar with the matter. Facebook also feared angering WhatsApp users who valued the app’s emphasis on privacy and who resisted the idea of having their accounts tied to Facebook.”, says the report.
Facebook, however, will work on adding ads to WhatsApp once it completes linking all its social platforms. Once that’s done, the report says, the social media giant would match Facebook and WhatsApp accounts to serve targeted ads. It goes without saying those ads would be shockingly personal when that happens.
“As we’ve said before, ads in Status remains a long-term opportunity for WhatsApp, and we believe it will be a great way for people to discover a business that is important to them in the future. That hasn’t changed. But right now our focus is on building new features to help businesses connect with their customers and providing payments in a number of countries.”, a Facebook spokesperson told TechRadar.
From all these, it is evident that the company will indeed ads to WhatsApp and it’s a question of ‘when’ and not ‘if’. Hence, whenever ads become mainstream on the platform, it will be interesting to see if users migrate to one of the many WhatsApp alternatives out there.
