WhatsApp starts showing in-app ads for first time

When Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, the messaging app had a clear focus. No ads, no games and no gimmicks.

- ELI TAN MIKE ISAAC

For years, that is what WhatsApp's 2 billion users - many of them in Brazil, India and other countries around the world-got. They chatted with friends and family unencumbered by advertising and other features found on social media.

Now that is set to change.

On Monday, WhatsApp said it would start showing ads inside its app for the first time. The promotions will appear only in an area of the app called Updates, which is used by around 1.5 billion people a day. WhatsApp will collect some data on users to target the ads, such as location and the device's default language, but it will not touch the contents of messages or whom users speak with. The company added that it had no plans to place ads in chats and personal messages.

"Thinking through the lens of privacy was incredibly important for how we thought about bringing these features to market," said Nikila Srinivasan, a vice president of product management at WhatsApp. "Your personal messages, calls and statuses, they will remain end-to-end encrypted."

In-app ads are a significant change from WhatsApp's original philosophy. Jan Koum and Brian Acton, who founded WhatsApp in 2009, were committed to building a simple and quick way for friends and family to communicate with end-to-end encryption, a method of keeping texts, photos, videos and phone calls inaccessible by third parties. Both left the company seven years ago.