Exit of WhatsApp cofounder seen as loss of privacy advocate

SAN FRANCISCO — The cofounder of WhatsApp, a messaging service owned by Facebook, Inc. with more than one billion daily users, said on Monday he was leaving the company, in a loss of one of the strongest advocates for privacy inside Facebook.

Jan Koum’s plan to exit comes after clashing with the parent company over WhatApp’s strategy and Facebook’s attempts to use its personal data and weaken its encryption, the Washington Post earlier reported, citing people familiar with the internal discussions.

“It ’ s been a lmost a decade since Brian and I star ted WhatsApp, and it’s been an amazing journey with some of the best people,” Mr. Koum, WhatsApp’s chief executive, said in a post on his Facebook page referring to cofounder Brian Acton.

“But it is time for me to move on.” He did not give a date for his departure and could not immediately be reached for comment.

Acton left the messaging service company in September to start a foundation, after spending eight years with WhatsApp.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg commented on Mr. Koum’s post, saying he was grateful for what Mr. Koum taught him 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.”

Facebook has battled European regulators over a plan to use WhatsApp user data, including phone numbers, to develop products and target ads. The plan is suspended, but WhatsApp said last week it still wanted to move forward eventually. —