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WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum leaves, allegedly over data privacy clash with owner Facebook
Jan Koum, the co-founder and chief executive of Facebook Inc.-owned messaging giant WhatsApp, will leave the company amid reported disagreements over data privacy, advertising and encryption.
Koum will also vacate his spot on Facebook’s board of directors, a position he filled when the social media giant bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014. The exact date of his departure is still unknown.
“It’s been almost a decade since Brian and I started WhatsApp, and it’s been an amazing journey with some of the best people,” Koum said on his Facebook page. “But it is time for me to move on,” He didn’t give a reason for leaving, other than wanting to focus on some of his hobbies.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg replied to the post, bidding Koum farewell and thanking him in his usual parlance for connecting the world. He also praised Koum for helping him understand “encryption and its ability to take power from centralized systems and put it back in people’s hands.”
When Koum started WhatsApp with co-founder Brian Acton, the pair emphasized the importance of protecting user privacy. Both men were open about their distaste of working with an advertising model for creating revenue. When Acton and Koum sold WhatsApp, they became billionaires overnight, although the app wasn’t generating a massive amount of revenue.
Facebook had ideas to change that, but in order to make money from the app, Facebook has had to weaken that enshrouded privacy. That included an unpopular move in 2016 to share phone numbers with Facebook and in 2017 a test of a new feature to connect businesses with WhatsApp users and to then start charging those businesses for those services. It’s also thought that the recent Facebook data scandal didn’t sit well with Koum.
Just after it was revealed that Facebook user data had been harvested and the name Cambridge Analytica became synonymous with data breaches, Acton wrote on Twitter, “It is time. #deletefacebook.” However, people familiar with the matter told the Washington Post that Koum had already decided to leave prior to the scandal breaking.
Image: Pixabay
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