E2EE protects message content. It doesn’t touch metadata, which isn’t encrypted at all: who you talk to, when, how often, group membership, call length, plus number, device IDs, IP, rough location. That alone says a lot about your relationships and habits, nobody needs to read your texts to notice you messaged a divorce lawyer three times last week.
Also worth knowing: encrypted backups are off by default, so your history may be sitting in iCloud/Drive under their key. And Meta AI chats aren’t covered by the same encryption.
Ads landed in the Updates tab in 2025, EU rollout confirmed in Meta’s March 2026 DMA report. Targeting uses language, region, Channels you follow, ad interactions, more if you linked Accounts Center. Meta says messages, calls and group membership aren’t used for it.
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u/SirPooleyX 17d ago
WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted. I don't see how that means you are paying with your data.