Social media giant Facebook said that its in-app dating feature wouldn’t be including ads. The social media giant has assured its million users across the globe that the service would be ad-free.

 

An ad-free dating service feature?

It can be recalled that just last week, Facebook said it is targeting close to 200 million Facebook users who classified themselves as “single” to use the social media app’s dating feature.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who addressed the audience of the company’s F8 conference, emphasized that the dating service would focus on “real long-term relationships” and not just “hookups.”

 

Just recently, Facebook was involved in the latest data breach controversy with Cambridge Analytica. The company was heavily criticized for allowing third-parties to mine data and use for political agenda. This begs the question if such dating feature would do the same—sharing private data with other parties without the user’s approval and knowledge.

 

But Facebook also pointed out, in a statement sent to Recode, that it does not plan to run ads. The company said that it doesn’t have any intensions or plan to use data that is associated with user’s dating profile. This also includes the user’s behavior that would potentially target them with ads.

 

Regarding Messaging, the company also said that the app’s dating feature has a separate messaging platform. This means that users won’t be using WhatsApp or Messenger unless both users would decide to use exchange numbers or usernames.

 

Meanwhile, Facebook said that the testing of the dating service is expected to begin this year. And the result of the test would determine the official launching of the app’s dating feature.