WhatsApp Won't Sends Ads To Your Status Feeds, At least For Now

Social media giant, Facebook has placed on hold its plans to introduce adverts in WhatsApp Status feed, The Wall Street Journal reports.

For over a year now, news of Facebook's plans to monetize WhatsApp's Status feeds has been lingering, with the social giant confirming at its annual Marketing Summit last year in Rotterdam, Netherlands, that ads will come to WhatsApp's feeds in 2020.

According to WSJ, people tasked with the responsibility of integrating ads into the service have been shut down, with the work from the team deleted from the app's code. This was also confirmed by renowned WhatsApp info leaker, WABetaInfo, who said all codes relating to ads were removed completely from the app, dating back to beta version 2.19.356 released sometime in December 4, 2019.

In according to this article found online, WhatsApp will focus on helping businesses to connect with customers, putting aside the status ads feature (momentarily!).
In fact, since the 2.19.356 Android beta, there is no code about status ads.

Thanks @JohannesLenz for reporting! https://t.co/hoZIuTDX8T

— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) January 16, 2020

For now, plans to monetize WhatsApp will stay on hold, though the plans aren't completely dead. Instead, the company will focus on monetizing WhatsApp business with hopes to generate some revenue.

Facebook relies on ads on its platform and also wants to start generating revenue from the $19 billion it used to purchase WhatsApp in 2014. However, the social giant from inception has met stiff response from WhatsApp's co-founder, Jan Koum's no-ads policy. Such were the two at logger heads that Koum had to leave the company last year.