WhatsApp Starts Displaying Ads in India and Other Regions Without Official Announcement

WhatsApp, a subsidiary of Meta, has rolled out advertisements inside its app without much fanfare. It has been noticed that in the past few days, people have seen promotional postings on WhatsApp. It is counted as one of WhatsApp's biggest changes.

According to reports, ads are now appearing within the Updates tab, especially in the Status and Channels sections, in many countries, including India. If you haven't seen any ads in your chats, you may soon start seeing ads. It's clear that Meta is now trying to turn WhatsApp into a new source of revenue.

Some users have even been informed of the new advertising policy through in-app notifications. Meta has already announced that ads will be displayed in WhatsApp Status in the future. Now, this feature is gradually rolling out to everyone.

WhatsApp says that these ads will allow users to easily discover new businesses and start conversations about products or services within the app. The company also stated that data from private chats, calls, and statuses will not be used to display ads, as they are end-to-end encrypted.

Ads will primarily be displayed based on your location, phone language, and your activity on Statuses or channels. While this change has upset many users, WhatsApp claims that users can control their ads to some extent. They can set their ad preferences, hide specific ads, and report annoying ads.

First, go to your WhatsApp settings. Now go to the Account Center. Here you will find Account Settings, where you can change your ad settings by going to Ad Preferences. If you see an ad in your status, tap the three-dot menu at the top and select Hide Ad. You can hide or manage sponsored ads displayed on channels by tapping them, and also report inappropriate or irrelevant ads.