WhatsApp today made news as it has come to light that Facebook has found a way to bypass the messaging encryption to enable targeted ads in the app.
The US media giant has stated that they are committed to WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption, but since buying it four years ago for the eye watering amount of $19 billion, Facebook have been looking to monetise it. They would create targeted ads by fishing for specific words within messages rather than being able to access the full message like they do with Messenger.
It was primarily for this reason that WhatsApp’s co-founder Brian Acton left the company in September last year – revealing as much last week in an interview with Forbes, and stating that he had sold his users’ privacy.
Since breaking his silence in the interview a spat between Acton and a number of Facebook executives has continued to develop.
