WhatsApp might sometimes feel like a human right, but actually it’s a company that needs to make money, just like the rest of them.
Well it looks like one of the ways that it could make that money is by allowing businesses to chat to you, whether that’s for updates, customer service or smart notifications.
WhatsApp has always avoided using ads in its app for fear of alienating its 1+ billion users so this could be seen as a relatively intrusive compromise.
Of course the idea of businesses WhatsApp messaging you probably doesn’t sound like a compromise at all, but it’s unlikely the company would ever let it feel like you’re being spammed.
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The company has been working on expanding a set of tools that would be able to integrate their own services into WhatsApp.
One example that could be used is a bank contacting you directly through WhatsApp if it has detected fraudulent activity on your account.
Reuters has discovered that a number of startups from Y Combinator have apparently been working with WhatsApp to develop this technology.
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One such company was Cowlar Inc, a company that makes smart collars for cows on dairy farms. In their use case, the company wants to use WhatsApp to then send direct diagnostic information from the cow to the dairy farmer.
Of course it should be important to note that this is all speculation as WhatsApp has declined to comment on the story.
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