Telegram to launch 'Sponsored Messages' tool

Encrypted messaging app Telegram on Friday announced that it is launching Sponsored Messages that will allow anyone to promote their channel or bot.

Sponsored messages on Telegram are shown only in large public one-to-many channels with more than 1,000 members -- and are based solely on the topic of the public channels in which they are shown.

This means that no user data is mined or analysed to display them.

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"Sponsored messages are currently in test mode and are not available to everyone," the company said in a statement.

"Once they are fully launched and allow Telegram to cover its basic costs (such as equipment and data centres that are used by channel admins to deliver their content to our hundreds of millions of users), we plan to start sharing ad revenue with the admins of the channels where Sponsored Messages are displayed -- because it is fair," it added.

Sponsored messages can not appear in your chat list, private chats or groups.

The company mentioned that with Telegram, users are more ad-free than with WhatsApp.