Amazon It has been closing lately. After confirming the closure of Amazon Drive, a cloud storage service, it is now the turn of subsidiary Wickr, which announced closing your Wickr Me encrypted messaging appfor next year.

Founded in 2011, Wickr has positioned itself as one of the most popular options in its segment of messaging services that offer end-to-end encryption. It was acquired by Amazon Web Services in 2021, since then it has been a subsidiary of the cloud giant belonging to the company founded by Jeff Bezos.

The free messaging app Wickr will be phased out as it stops accepting new user registrations starting December 31, 2022. definitively closed a year later, on December 31, 2023. In this way, users are given a lot of room to switch to other solutions with the same or similar features.

It’s important to note that the shutdown will only affect consumer-facing products that have been relatively popular with journalists and whistleblowers, as end-to-end encryption makes it harder for cyber spies and malicious actors to intercept messages. from his side, products intended for government agencies, military organizations, and businesses will not be affected by this shutdown.

In a publication announcing the upcoming closure of Wickr to consumers, Amazon explained that “after careful consideration, we are focusing Wickr’s attention on protecting the data and communications of our commercial and public sector customers with AWS Wickr and Wickr Enterprise, and have decided to discontinue our Wickr Me consumer product.” “

This movement may have its origin in the fact that a free messaging app allowed criminals to exchange images of child sexual abuse. That was denounced by NBC News in June, citing official documents, law enforcement agencies and activists who accused the company of doing little to proactively address the problem. Another thing to keep in mind is that Wickr Me has become a hub for drug dealers who have been forced out of the dark web by the shutdown of sites like Silk Road.

Given that the consumer-facing service has been used for some pretty dubious deals, and Wickr counts the CIA and controversial private security firm Blackwater among its backers, the shutdown seems more like an attempt by Amazon to clean up its image than anything else. to know what pressures both the parent company and the subsidiary company were subjected to in this matter. Looking at the obvious reasons behind Wickr Me’s closure, it wouldn’t be surprising to find that this is just the tip of the iceberg.