Rumor: Facebook does not put ads in WhatsApp – IT Pro – News

Facebook has decided not to place any ads in WhatsApp. The company wanted to make money from the chat service with the advertisements, but has now decided, according to The Wall Street Journal, to make money by offering services to companies via the chat app.

Facebook has dissolved a team that worked on the integration of advertisements in WhatsApp, WSJ reports. The company’s plan was to place ads in the Status function of the chat app, but that plan is now canceled. WSJ does not state why Facebook has decided not to proceed with the function. The newspaper does, however, claim that the introduction of the function would require a ‘formal notification to users’ and perhaps the company was afraid of the consequences.

Facebook has never kept secret about the plan, which was the reason for WhatsApp founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton to leave the company. The then top man for WhatsApp announced the advertisements in November 2018 and showed last spring what the ads would look like. The ads should have come this year.

The ads would be in Status, the WhatsApp equivalent of Stories from Snapchat and Instagram. It would be about full-screen advertisements such as those in those services. According to WSJ, Facebook now wants to focus on earning money by offering services to companies when communicating with customers via WhatsApp. Facebook did not respond to the article.

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