San Francisco WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton takes over the leadership of the competing chat service Signal – at least until a permanent new boss is found. Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike announced on Monday that he would be leaving the top job within a month. He wants to “bring in someone with fresh energy” and will concentrate on the search for a successor.
Signal has around 40 million active users per month. The app uses so-called end-to-end encryption, in which chat content is only available in clear text for the users involved.
Last year, Signal benefited from the controversy surrounding WhatsApp’s new terms of use with an influx of new users. At the time, there were fears that WhatsApp would share more data with the parent company Facebook – which the service always rejected.
The encryption algorithm developed by Signal is also used by WhatsApp. Acton has been involved with Signal since he left the Facebook group a few years following the WhatsApp takeover and distanced himself from the online network.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Signal recently switched to a controversial project with the plan to make untraceable digital payments available to users. According to US media reports, some Signal employees feared that this might cause major problems for the chat service, including with US regulatory authorities.
More: Despite controversial data protection rules, German users remained with WhatsApp – willingness to switch.
.
