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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

(www.nytimes.com)
713 points greenburger | 1 comments | 16 Jun 25 13:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.218s | source
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illiac786 ◴[16 Jun 25 18:21 UTC] No.44292044[source]▶
> 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

End-to-end encryption was added by Meta, they reused (part of) the Signal app code for this.

This was a big topic for years, I am surprised by this oversight.

replies(1): >>44293208 #
1. kovariantenkak ◴[16 Jun 25 20:41 UTC] No.44293208[source]▶
Fun fact: For the first few years WhatsApp didn't have any encryption whatsoever. It took public pressure for them to even add TLS.

A massive oversight on the authors part and completely missing the point of early WhatsApp as first status update application and then SMS replacement.