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Jan Koum, the co-founder chief executive officer of WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging app has called it quits with the company after disagreements over privacy and encryption rules.
According to reports, Koum is unhappy over plans by Facebook’s attempts to revise the privacy rules of WhatsApp, use its personal data and weaken its encryption.
“It is time for me to move on,” Koum who sold WhatsApp to Facebook for more than $19 billion in 2014, wrote on his Facebook profile. “I’m leaving at a time when people are using WhatsApp in more ways than I could have imagined. The team is stronger than ever and it will continue to do amazing things.”
According to a report by the Washington Post, Koum’s departure was necessitated by tensions with Facebook over WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption, which ensure that messages cannot be intercepted and read by anyone outside of the conversation, including by WhatsApp or Facebook.
Efforts by Facebook make it easier for businesses to use WhatsApp tools has the executives at variance as believe that the results would only weak some of the encryption.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook has since commented on Koum’s Facebook post about his departure.
“Jan: I will miss working so closely with you. I’m grateful for everything you have done to help connect the world, and for everything you have taught me, including about encryption and its ability to take power from centralised systems and put it back in people’s hands. Those values will always be at the heart of WhatsApp,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Since it acquired WhatsApp, Facebook has faced pressures to turn the free encrypted messaging platform with over 1.5 billion monthly users into a revenue stream. That pressure became evident in 2016 when WhatsApp announced it would begin sharing some user data including phone numbers, with Facebook. That move brought it some negative public backlash one of which was European regulators’ $122 million fine and order on Facebook to cease collecting data from WhatsApp users.
Koum is reported to have been heavily critical of advertising inside the app. He once vowed to keep them out of the messaging app. This may no longer be possible with him. Facebook which has rolled out display ads in the Messenger inbox, is likely to turn its attention to WhatsApp.
