The co-founder and longtime head of popular chat service WhatsApp, Jan Koum, leaves parent company Facebook. It was time for him to move on, wrote Koum in an entry on his Facebook profile. It was an “incredible journey” and he thanked “all who made it possible”.
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The Washington Post reports that re has been a dispute with Facebook about data usage and strict encryption of WhatsApp, but Koum wrote nothing about it. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg thanked him and assured that values like encryption would always remain at core of WhatsApp.
Koum and his co-founder Brian Acton had sold WhatsApp 2014 for around 22 billion dollars (which is currently 18.1 billion euros) to Facebook and secured far-reaching independence. WhatsApp remained non-free and user data was initially completely separated from those that Facebook collects. Meanwhile, WhatsApp and Facebook, according to company, have phone numbers to filter out spam. At same time, WhatsApp relies on so-called end-to-end encryption, where messages are only readable by sender and recipient, but not for company itself.
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The service now has more than 1.3 billion users worldwide. But data protection focus of WhatsApp founders and ir rejection of advertising in principle made it more difficult for Facebook to earn money with expensively purchased service. According to Washington Post, WhatsApp managers were blocking use of data from cross-user profile service, which would also link information from Facebook and Instagram photo platform, which also belongs to group.
In Europe, first attempts to exchange information from WhatsApp with Facebook have encountered resistance from data protectionists. In addition, European Commission has occupied online network a year ago with a penalty of 110 million euros. The reason was that when takeover was released, Facebook had stated that it was not technically possible to link data from WhatsApp and online network – but n 2016, however, announced reconciliation of phone numbers.
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The business idea of WhatsApp was finally opportunity to let companies communicate with ir customers. Again, according to information from Washington Post, re were differences: Facebook wanted to simplify use of service for companies, in WhatsApp’s view, this would have required a softening of encryption. In end, Koum had become tired of disagreements, it was said, citing informed persons. Or WhatsApp employees wanted to go in November when ir stock options become due.
Acton left WhatsApp last fall and invested 50 million dollars a few months ago in a foundation that wants to develop technology for encrypted communication. Koums announcement comes for Facebook at an unfavorable time, on eve of annual developer conference F8.
