27 Facts About Kik Messenger

Kik Messenger, commonly called Kik, is a freeware instant messaging mobile app from the Canadian company Kik Interactive, available free of charge on iOS and Android operating systems.

Kik Messenger was originally intended to be a music-sharing app before transitioning to messaging, briefly offering users the ability to send a limited number of SMS text messages directly from the application.

Kik Messenger Interactive was founded in 2009 by a group of students from the University of Waterloo in Canada who wished to create new technologies for use on mobile smartphones.

Kik Messenger is the first app developed by Kik Interactive, and was released on October 19,2010.

Company CEO Ted Livingston stated Kik Messenger's aspirations to become "the WeChat of the West" and said that attracting younger users was an important part of the company's strategy.

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Since the time of the incident, Kik Messenger has taken a variety of proactive measures to help increase safety on our platform.

In January of 2018, Kik Messenger updated its Terms of Service and Community Standards to "make Kik Messenger a more respectful and fun place".

Also in 2017, Kik Messenger decided against more VC funding, instead raising nearly $100 million in a high-profile initial coin offering on the Ethereum blockchain.

In September 2019, Kik's CEO and founder Ted Livingston, announced in a blog post that Kik Messenger would be shut down on 19 October 2019, with over 100 employees laid off.

Kik Messenger joined the Virtual Global Taskforce, a global anti-child-abuse organization, in March 2015.

Kik Messenger began using Microsoft's PhotoDNA in March 2015 to premoderate images added by users.

That same month, Kik Messenger released native video capture allowing users to record up to 15 seconds in the chat window.

In October 2015, Kik Messenger partnered with the Ad Council as part of an anti-bullying campaign.

The campaign was featured on the app and Kik Messenger released stickers in collaboration with the campaign.

Kik Messenger released a feature to send GIFs as emojis in November 2015.

Kik Messenger added SafePhoto to its safety features in October 2016 which "detects, reports, and deletes known child exploitation images" sent through the platform.

Kik Messenger partnered with ConnectSafely in 2016 to produce a "parents handbook" and joined The Technology Coalition, an anti-sexual exploitation group including Facebook, Google, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Kik Messenger added promoted chats in 2014, which used bots to converse with users about promoted brands through keywords activating responses.

On November 4,2014, Kik Messenger scored 1 out of 7 points on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's secure messaging scorecard.

Kik Messenger received a point for encryption during transit but lost points because communications are not encrypted with a key to which the provider does not have access, users cannot verify contacts' identities, past messages are not secure if the encryption keys are stolen, the code is not open to independent review, the security design is not properly documented, and there had not been a recent independent security audit.

On October 1,2014, Sony Music and Kik Messenger Interactive were given a Smarties award by the Mobile Marketing Association for their global music marketing campaign with One Direction.

Police said they found Kik Messenger's response frustrating and one detective said obtaining information from Kik Messenger was a "bureaucratic nightmare".

Kik Messenger has been criticized for providing inadequate parental control over minors' use of the app.

In March 2016, Kik Messenger Interactive was involved in a high-profile dispute over use of the name "kik" with independent code developer Azer Koculu, the author of numerous open-source software modules published on npm, a package manager widely used by JavaScript projects to install dependencies.

Kik Messenger Interactive contacted him objecting to his use of the name, for which the company claimed intellectual property rights, and asked him to change the name.

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When Koculu refused, Kik Messenger Interactive contacted npm management, who agreed to transfer ownership of the module to Kik Messenger without Koculu's consent.

On September 7,2017, only days before the Kin ICO, Kik Messenger announced that Canadian citizens would be barred from participating, citing weak guidance from the Ontario Securities Commission for the decision.