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Eleven years after purchasing WhatsApp, Meta is going full throttle with its plans to monetize the communication platform. And while officials at the social media giant say users privacy will still be protected, some experts are urging caution. The social media giant announced on Monday it will over the next few months bring advertisements to WhatsApp, a radical shift for an app whose founders deliberately chose not to include advertising (or games or anything else that was popular amongst app makers at the time).The ads will appear just in one segment of the app, called Updates. That’s used by about 1.5 billion people per day, roughly half of the app’s total monthly users. Ads will not be a part of WhatsApp’s chat feature with friends. Meta said it will collect some data from users to help with targeting the ads. This includes location and language. The company said it will not collect any information from messages or calls. “Like everything else on WhatsApp, weve built these features in the most privacy-oriented way possible,” the company wrote in the Monday blog post. “Your personal messages, calls and statuses remain end-to-end encrypted, meaning no one can see or hear them. That includes Meta.” But the revamped ad policy raises some red flags, especially given Meta’s spotty historical record when it comes to privacy. “The fact that Meta has promised that it’s adding ads to WhatsApp with privacy in mind does not make me trust this new feature,” says Lena Cohen, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). “Ads that are targeted based on your personal data are a privacy nightmare, no matter what app they’re on.” Concerns about WhatsApps privacy practices arent new. Just over a year ago, Elon Musk criticized the platform, writing on X that it “exports your user data every night.” (Metas Will Cathcart, who runs WhatsApp, denied that in a reply, writing: Many have said this already, but worth repeating: this is not correct. We take security seriously and that’s why we end-to-end encrypt your messages. They don’t get sent to us every night or exported to us.) Meanwhile, Meta continues to face broader scrutiny over its handling of personal information, including a pending lawsuit stemming from the 2016 Cambridge Analytica scandal and a recent $1.4 billion settlement over its unauthorized collection of biometric information. WhatsApps co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton have never been shy to express their distaste for the advertising industry. That caused strife after WhatsApp was bought by Meta and in 2018, the two founders left the company, using an escape hatch in their contracts after a reported series of clashes with executives. (Doing so cost Acton $900 million and Koum $400 million, as they departed before they were eligible for stock rewards.) Acton, at the time, expressed regrets for selling the app, saying “At the end of the day, I sold my company. I sold my users privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. I live with that every day.” Meta, though, has pledged not to put ads within WhatsApp chats. In November 2023, Cathcart said Meta “won’t put ads in your inbox,” a vow he has been able to keep, in large part because of the popularity of the Updates tab. Perhaps anticipating the concerns Monday’s announcement might stir up, Meta launched an ad campaign three weeks ago that reinforced the privacy of personal messages. While there are no estimates about how much Meta will be able to grow its ad revenue with WhatsApp advertisements, it’s a number that’s likely to increase in coming years. (In 2024, for perspective, Meta’s ad revenue reached $162.4 billion company wide.) Despite that, the EFFs Cohen says users who are concerned about the privacy implications of this move are right to be on their guard. While she said the promises the company made in announcing the addition of ads were encouraging, they weren’t sufficient to completely ensure user data would remain confidential. Cohen warns that even though Meta claims it wont use personally identifiable data, the information it does collect can still be used to re-identify usersespecially when combined from other data combed from the web. “I would definitely recommend that people do not add WhatsApp to their Meta account center, she says. That will allow Meta to broadcast even more of your personal information to potential advertisers. And that data wouldn’t just include info that meta gets from you on its own platforms; it would include information it gets from tracking you across the web.”
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E-Commerce
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), public health and regulatory officials, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are investigating an outbreak of Salmonella Oranienburg infections in two states linked to Emek branded pistachio cream. On Monday, the CDC issued a food safety alert warning consumers not to eatand businesses not to sell or servethe nut butter spread used in desserts and other dishes. As of June 13, four people in two states, three in Minnesota and one in New Jersey, have gotten sick. One person has been hospitalized and no deaths are reported. State and local public health officials have determined all four reported eating pistachio cream in the week leading up to when they got sick, with three of the four eating at the same restaurant. (Officials have not disclosed the name of that restaurant.) The pistachio cream is a shelf-stable nut butter cream manufactured in Turkey by a company whose full name is listed as Emek Dogal Saglik Urunleri Iklim Gida Insaat San Tic Ltd Sti. The product was imported into the United States, where it sold online for wholesale distributors, restaurants, and food service locations nationwide. What do I need to know about the outbreak? The illnesses started on dates ranging from March 10, 2025, to May 19, 2025. The recalled product is as follows: Product Name: Emek brand pistachio cream Use-by date: October 19, 2026 Package: May be packaged in an 11-pound white tub Production code (PNO): 241019 The investigation is ongoing and the FDA is working to determine if additional lots or products are affected. According to the CDC, the total number of people made sick is likely much higher than the number reported, and this outbreak may not be limited to the states with current known illnesses. This is because many people recover without medical care and are not tested for Salmonella. In addition, recent illnesses may not yet be reported as it usually takes 3 to 4 weeks to determine if a sick person is part of an outbreak. What is Salmonella and what are the symptoms? Salmonella is a bacterium that can make you very sick if ingested. Most infected people experience diarrhea, stomachaches, and fever. Those at greatest risk are children under 5 years of age, adults ages 65 and over, and those with compromised immune systems. According to the CDC, symptoms usually begin 6 hours to 6 days after infection and last 4 to 7 days. However, as we mentioned above, some people dont show or experience symptoms for weeks. What should I do if I have the product? Do not eat or serve Emek pistachio cream. If you do have the product, wash and sanitize items and surfaces that may have come in contact with the it, following the FDA’s safe handling and cleaning recommendations to reduce the risk of cross-contamination. You can read more information on the CDCs Salmonella page.
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E-Commerce
A different kind of pie chart is being used to predict global crises. A surge in takeout deliveries to the Pentagon has become a surprisingly accurate predictor of major geopolitical events, dubbed the Pentagon Pizza Index. Tracking activity at local pizza joints in Arlington County, the X account Pentagon Pizza Report noted an uptick in Google Maps activity from four pizza places near the Pentagon on June 12. We, The Pizza, District Pizza Palace, Dominos, and Extreme Pizza all reportedly saw higher-than-usual order volumes around 7 p.m. ET. As of 6:59 p.m. ET nearly all pizza establishments nearby the Pentagon have experienced a HUGE surge in activity, the X account posted. The timing? Just hours before news broke of Israels major attack on Iran. As of 6:59pm ET nearly all pizza establishments nearby the Pentagon have experienced a HUGE surge in activity. pic.twitter.com/ZUfvQ1JBYM— Pentagon Pizza Report (@PenPizzaReport) June 12, 2025 The U.S. announced it was not involved in the attacks. We are not involved in strikes against Iran, and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement released by the White House on June 12. However, as the theory goes, the surge in traffic at local pizza joints close to government buildings may have signaled hungry military leadership hunkering down to monitor unfolding events. The kind of analytics we love,” read one comment on X. Google Maps research beats some spy agencies around the world,” another user reacted. The predictive power of pizza isnt a new theory. As Alex Selby-Boothroyd, The Economists head of data journalism, wrote on LinkedIn: The Pentagon Pizza Index has been a surprisingly reliable predictor of seismic global eventsfrom coups to warssince the 1980s. During the Cold War, Soviet operatives reportedly monitored pizza delivery activity in Washington, believing a sudden uptick in late-night orders signaled military personnel working overtime. They even gave it a code name: Pizzint, short for pizza intelligence. In January 1991, Frank Meeks, who then owned 43 Dominos outlets in the Washington area, told the Los Angeles Times: The news media doesnt always know when something big is going to happen because theyre in bed, but [pizza] deliverers are out there at 2 in the morning. He added that on the night of August 1, 1990, the CIA ordered a record number of pizzas in a single night21 pies. A few hours later, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, marking the beginning of the Gulf War. As CNNs then-Pentagon correspondent Wolf Blitzer reportedly said in 1990: Bottom line for journalists: Always monitor the pizzas. Of course, a correlation between pizza delivery and global crises is not a verified method of tracking world events. In a statement to Newsweek, the Pentagon dismissed the theory, noting they have plenty of pizza options inside the building, along with sushi, sandwiches, and donuts. They also disputed the timeline suggested by the Pentagon Pizza Report, saying it did not align with the events. Still, if you notice a spike in pizza orders near the Pentagon, it might be worth keeping an eye on the news.
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E-Commerce
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