WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum is leaving Facebook after clashing over data privacy
WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum is leaving Facebook after clashing
over data privacy
The messaging app’s CEO pushed back against Facebook’s
approach to user data, advertising, and encryption
By Nick Statt Apr 30, 2018, 5:34pm EDT
WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum is leaving the
company amid arguments with parent company Facebook over data privacy and the
messaging app’s business model, according to a report from The Washington Post.
Koum, together with his fellow co-founder Brian Acton, sold WhatsApp to Facebook
in 2014 for an eye-popping sum of $19 billion, $3 billion of which consisted of
Facebook stock granted to both Koum and Acton, who left the company back in
September. Koum confirmed his departure in a personal Facebook post today.
Koum’s Facebook post does not mention any inner turmoil
at WhatsApp or address any of The Washington Post’s reporting, which suggests
Koum took issue with Facebook’s approach to data privacy and encryption:
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. But it
is time for me to move on. I’ve been blessed to work with such an incredibly
small team and see how a crazy amount of focus can produce an app used by so
many people all over the world.
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’ll
continue to do amazing things. I’m taking some time off to do things I enjoy
outside of technology, such as collecting rare air-cooled Porsches, working on
my cars and playing ultimate frisbee. And I’ll still be cheering WhatsApp on –
just from the outside. Thanks to everyone who has made this journey possible.
In response, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded to
Koum in a comment saying, “Jan: I will miss working so closely with you. I’m
grateful for everything you’ve done to help connect the world, and for
everything you’ve taught me, including about encryption and its ability to take
power from centralized systems and put it back in people’s hands. Those values
will always be at the heart of WhatsApp.”
Both Koum and Acton are devout privacy advocates, and
both pledged to preserve the sanctity of WhatsApp when they announced its sale
to Facebook four years ago, which meant the duo planned never to make
integrating the product with a user’s Facebook account mandatory and said it
would never share data with the parent company. WhatsApp became entirely
end-to-end encrypted in April of 2016, and the company has resisted calls from
government agencies to build back doors into its product even for
counterterrorism and law enforcement measures.
However, Facebook pushed WhatsApp to change its terms of
service last year to give the larger social network access to WhatsApp users’
phone numbers. Facebook leadership also pushed for unified profiles across its
products that could be used for data mining and ad targeting, as well as a
recommendation system that would suggest Facebook friends based on WhatsApp
contacts.
The business model of the app also created contention
between Koum and Facebook, with the latter company pushing for the elimination
of the $0.99 annual subscription fee to increase user growth and looking to
advertising and other methods, like letting businesses chat with customers, as
potential sources of revenue. The plan to bring businesses onto the platform
was especially thorny, as Facebook reportedly wanted to weaken WhatsApp
encryption to let businesses read user messages, The Washington Post reports.
Koum’s departure is four years and one month since the
acquisition, meaning he’s been able to fully exercise all of his stock options
under a standard corporate vesting schedule. But the reasons for his leaving
seem to be more idealogical than financial. Acton, who has poured $50 million
of his own money into encrypted messaging app Signal, tweeted back in March,
“It’s time,” along with the hashtag #DeleteFacebook, in response to the ongoing
Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal. So it seems both founders are fed up
with Facebook.
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