£6bn WhatsApp boss quits

THE billionaire head of WhatsApp has quit following a row about how its parent company Facebook wants to mine users’ personal data.

Millions of the free messaging service’s users could see their data harvested after Facebook asked for access to sell targeted advertising.

WhatsApp, bought by Facebook in 2014 for £13.8billion, has always promised to keep the two companies separate, with privacy central to this.

But Facebook has tried many times over the years to weaken WhatsApp’s encryption standards, which ensure users’ messages cannot be accessed by others.

This is said to have infuriated co-founder Jan Koum, worth around £6.6billion, who resigned on Monday, saying it was time to ‘move on’.