Telegram Launches Sponsored Messages to Promote Channels and Bots, While Assuring User Privacy
Telegram has announced the introduction of Sponsored Messages on its platform, a tool that will allow anyone to promote their channels and bots. Sponsored Messages will be visible in Telegram public channels with over a thousand subscribers. It will also be limited to 160 characters.
The feature is currently in testing mode. The app will share ad revenue with the admins of the channels in which Sponsored Messages are displayed once they are rolled out and allow it to cover basic infrastructure costs, according to Telegram.
In a blog post published on November 19, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov announced the launch of Sponsored Messages. Sponsored Messages, he confirmed, would not appear in your chat list, private chats, or groups. There will also be no advertisements in Telegram chats. According to the company, the Sponsored Messages will appear based solely on the topic of the public channels in which they are displayed.
The CEO of Telegram has stated that this new feature will not jeopardize user privacy, stating that no user data is mined or analyzed in order to display ads.
“Ads will not be targeted based on user data. Our main priority, as with everything we do, is to protect our users’ private data. As a result, unlike other apps, we will not use your personal information to display advertisements “, Durov stated.
Every Telegram user who visits a specific channel sees the same Sponsored Messages. As previously stated, Sponsored Messages can be seen on public channels with over 1,000 members.
The Sponsored Messages feature is still in testing and is not yet available to everyone. Once it goes live and Telegram is able to balance its basic costs of equipment and data centers, the company intends to split revenue with the administrators of the channels where Sponsored Messages are displayed.
Pavel Durov claimed that Telegram is more ad-free than its main competitor WhatsApp, claiming that the Meta-owned platform shares user data with advertisers even though it does not display ads.
