After Telegram, Facebook is now blocking ads from competitor, Hike Messenger

Home-grown Hike Messenger has accused Facebook of blocking an option in its advertisements which lets people visit the chatting application’s website.

Run by Kavin Mittal, son of Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal, Hike competes with Facebook-owned WhatsApp. Hike is owned by a joint venture of Bharti and Japan’s SoftBank.

“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,” a Hike spokesperson told PTI.

The spokesperson added they assumed it was a technical glitch but when the team wrote to Facebook, the social networking giant said Hike would not be able to run the ads.

A query sent to Facebook by PTI remained unanswered.

“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. Facebook said,” the spokesperson said about the response Hike received from Facebook.

A query sent to Facebook by PTI remained unanswered.

Over-the-top (OTT) players such as Hike and WhatsApp use internet to offer voice and messaging services to consumers.

Hike had recently became the second largest messaging app in India with 70 million users. The app was launched in December 2012 and has raised USD 86 million from Tiger Global and BSB till date.

Facebook is known for throttling down efforts made by competitors that make an attempt to use its services. A similar incident was reported by another messaging competitor of Facebook’s WhatsApp called Telegram. As per the report , Facebook was caught blocking telegram links in its messaging app WhatsApp. The app would not allow users to  forward nor copy or even open a link with the word‘telegram’ in the subdomain (.telegram).

With inputs from PTI