WhatsApp co-founder who supports privacy to leave Facebook

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The co-founder of WhatsApp, a messaging service owned by Facebook Inc (FB.O) with more than a billion daily users, said on Monday he was leaving the company, in a loss of one of the strongest advocates for privacy inside Facebook.

Koum confirmed his departure from WhatsApp Monday on his Facebook page, saying “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,” where he referred to co-founder Brian Acton.

“But it is time for me to move on.” He did not give a date for his departure.

Jan Koum, co-founder and CEO of WhatsApp speaks at the Wall Street Journal D. Live conference in Laguna Beach, California, October 25, 2016. /VCG Photo

The Washington Post reported that Koum also planned to resign from Facebook’s board of directors.

According to its earlier report citing the internal source, Jan Koum’s plan to exit came after clashing with the parent company over WhatApp’s strategy and Facebook’s attempts to use its personal data and weaken its encryption.

WhatsApp was founded in 2009 and grew in popularity in part because its encrypted messages are stored on users’ smartphones and not on company servers, making the service more private.

WhatsApp also runs no ads. Facebook’s enormous profits, meanwhile, are powered almost entirely by advertising targeted to its users’ interests.

In 2014, Facebook bought WhatsApp for 19 billion US dollars, though without ever devising a clear strategy for how that service would make money.

Both the two co-founders of WhatsApp, Koum and Acton, had expressed an aversion to allowing ads into their service, causing analysts to wonder if the acquisition would ever pay off for Facebook.

Now, Koum’s leave could put Mark Zuckerberg in an uncomfortable position. The embattled CEO has been offering apologies ever since revelations that Facebook allowed a data mining firm, Cambridge Analytica, to obtain personal information for political purposes from as many as 87 million of its users.

Two Emojis and a giant Mark Zuckerberg head call on MPs to Fix Facebook ahead of the parliamentary hearing with Facebook's chief technological officer, Mike Schroepfer, April 26, 2018, London, UK. /VCG Photo

In reply to Koum’s Facebook post, Zuckerberg told him he would miss working together.

“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,” Zuckerberg wrote.