Facebook has said it will be “backing away” from earlier plans to monetize the WhatsApp messaging service with adverts.
The Wall Street Journal released information that the team tasked with placing adverts within the WhatsApp messaging site has been disbanded.
All advert have now been “deleted from WhatsApp’s code.”
However, that isn’t an end to the story as Facebook still wish to integrate the adverts at some point.
WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014, for the sum of $22 billion, and there is little currently available in the platform to produce a return.
This setback has forced Facebook to focus on WhatsApp features that will “allow businesses to communicate with customers and organize those contacts.” However, any kind of tampering may effect the end to end encryption, unless rigorously tested and thought through.
The shift by the company from public posts to private messaging is no secret, and they have already begun to clamp down on non Facebook account holders messaging through the Facebook messenger.
The shift will come when Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp all share the encrypted end to end messaging service, however this is a very tricky solution to monetize.
