this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
29 points (100.0% liked)

Tech

1335 readers
150 users here now

A community for high quality news and discussion around technological advancements and changes

Things that fit:

Things that don't fit

Community Wiki

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
29
WhatsApp is adding ads to the Status screen (techcrunch.com)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
12 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

After years of providing free services without any bells attached, WhatsApp is now going to start showing ads on the popular chat app. To be clear, users will only see ads on the Status screen — the app’s take on Instagram’s Stories.

So just like you see an ad after watching a few stories on Instagram, you will see ads on WhatsApp after you’ve scrolled through a few Status updates.

The company said that its ad mechanism uses signals like users’ country or city, language, and the channels they’re following, as well as data from ads that users interact with.

Meta said it is not using personally identifiable data, such as users’ phone numbers, messages, calls, and groups to serve targeted ads. If a user has added their WhatsApp account to Meta’s Account Center, the company will use their Account preferences to show ads.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My own approach is that there is no way to reach me via WhatsApp. Whenever I need to reach someone who "has WhatsApp", I'll just use their "WhatsApp number" anyway. Only very few people seem to know that their "WhatsApp number" is equal to their SMS/iMessage number... ;-)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

Well, I don't have that option, as I need to be available in the company's WhatsApp group to get work (⇒ money), which then means that I have to keep my Android phone working, despite it getting worse every update.