It is safe to say that WhatsApp is one of the biggest messaging apps around right now, and Messenger is catching up with a reported 800 million users. However there are plenty of rivals around, like LINE, KakaoTalk, WeChat, Skype, Viber, Telegram, and etc., so safe to say that the space is pretty competitive.So much so that Facebook could be resorting to dirty tactics to stay ahead, or at least that is what Hike is accusing the company of. For those unfamiliar, Hike is an India-based instant messaging platform, and recently the company had accused Facebook of blocking its ads that prevented potential customers from visiting its website.
According to a Hike spokesperson, “Advertisers have, among other options, the option to ‘send people to your website’. A few weeks back we were suddenly blocked from using this option, while we were able to use other non action-led options.” When they contacted Facebook about this, the response from the social network was, “There are specific products and services that cannot be advertised on Facebook – looks like Hike is one of these. Unfortunately, you will not be able to run these ads.”
This isn’t the first time that Facebook has been accused of blocking its rivals. Just last month it was found that Facebook was apparently blocking links to Telegram, another rival on WhatsApp for Android. We’re not sure if this was a bug or if it was done on purpose since it only seemed to affect the Android version of WhatsApp.