In a move that breaks a promise made by WhatsApp's founder Brian Acton, advertisements will start appearing in the app by next year, the Daily Mail reported on Tuesday.
Facebook revealed at its marketing conference that promotional images will appear in WhatsApp's "Status" feature in an attempt to monetize the app.
Businesses also will be able to interact with customers using chat windows with "richer message formats," said Facebook, WhatsApp’s parent company.
The Status ads will appear between news updates and enable users to swipe up to obtain more information about the product.
Advertisements on Facebook also will link to WhatsApp to permit users to talk directly to a company via the messenger app and through Facebook Messenger.
Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014 for $18 billion.
According to the Independent, it then had a huge growth and now has more than 1.5 billion users from some180 countries.
Acton had said that “Targeted advertising is what makes me unhappy” and that Facebook “represents a set of business practices, principles and ethics, and policies that I don't necessarily agree with," according to the Daily Mail.
However, he added that, “At the end of the day, I sold my company. I sold my users' privacy to a larger benefit.”
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.