WhatsApp has been talking about launching in-app advertising for many years, but today the change has finally arrived. Ads in WhatsApp are now official, here are the details of what to expect—including the finer points of how your privacy is impacted.
Two types of ads are launching in WhatsApp today
Today Meta announced via the official WhatsApp blog that ads are rolling out to all users now.
Ads are launching as part of the Updates tab inside the app.
This means they won’t be part of your private chats—at least for now.
Instead, you’ll see ads integrated with the Stories-like ‘Status’ feature as well as the Channels list.
Here’s an example from Meta of what this will look like:
Essentially, if you’ve used Instagram Stories and seen ads there, the experience will now be very similar inside WhatsApp’s Status feature.
And in the Channels list, sponsored channels will now appear.
WhatsApp says it has built the ad feature “in the most private way possible.” That’s a big claim.
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