SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY BUREAU
Facebook has reportedly decided not to sell ads on WhatsApp, a controversial plan that had forced Brian Acton and Jan Koum, who founded the mobile messaging service, to quit nearly two years ago.
According to a The Wall Street Journal report, WhatsApp in recent months disbanded a team that had been established to find the best ways to integrate ads into the service.
“The team’s work was then deleted from WhatsApp’s code,” the report added, quoting people familiar with the matter. There was no official statement from Facebook on the report.
WhatsApp co-founder Acton left the company in 2017, and CEO Jan Koum in August, over their differences with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg who aimed to monetise WhatsApp by introducing ads between chats.
Both Acton and Koum never wanted WhatsApp to become a platform full of ads.
In an earlier interview with Forbes, Acton explained that a disagreement on monetising WhatsApp was the reason he quit Facebook and gave up $850 million on the table.
“At the end of the day, I sold my company. I sold my users’ privacy. I made a choice and a compromise. I live with that every day,” Acton said.
He alleged that Zuckerberg was in a rush to make money from the messaging service and undermine elements of its encryption technology. ‘Facebook-WhatsApp deal should have been blocked’
Meanwhile, the boss of France’s antitrust watchdog, which is set to help review EU rules, has said that Facebook’s $22 billion buyout of WhatsApp should have been blocked, “Clearly, deals such as the Facebook/WhatsApp merger should probably not have been allowed,” Isabelle de Silva said in an interview with Reuters.
“One of the things we see more clearly now than we did a few years ago is how the ability to collect and exploit data is a major advantage,” she said.
“This is what allows players like Facebook and Google to create their value today.”
With a new European Commission in place, antitrust authorities in Brussels are preparing for an in-depth review of EU competition rules.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s government has been at the forefront of European efforts to increase scrutiny and taxes on digital platforms.
France’s antitrust watchdog, which recently fined search engine Google 150 million euros for opaque advertising rules, will take part in the regulatory overhaul led by commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
European firms face mounting dominance by US and Chinese companies in social media, online search and e-commerce. But de Silva said she was not calling for a break-up of America’s biggest technology companies.
Instead, she said there was a need for tougher controls over large tech companies eating up innovative startups.
“Being dominant is not in itself illegal,” de Silva said. “I find it questionable that an already dominant company can acquire all the companies in its ecosystem and that no rival can emerge.” AGENCIES
