No. Telegram does not put ads in private chats, in groups, or anywhere else in your personal conversations, and it does not sell user data to anyone. Advertising exists in exactly one place on the platform, and you can switch it off.
Where ads actually appear
Sponsored messages are shown only in large public channels, which are broadcast feeds anyone can read without an account relationship. They never appear in a one-to-one chat, a private group, a supergroup you joined, or your saved messages.
- They are short text-only messages with no external tracking scripts and no images that phone home.
- They are matched to the topic and language of the channel being read, not to anything about you personally.
- Telegram Premium removes them entirely.
- Channel owners receive a share of the revenue earned from ads shown in their channel.
Why this matters for targeting
The distinction is the important part. Most advertising systems build a profile of the reader from browsing history, location and inferred interests, then follow that profile across services. Telegram's sponsored messages are matched to the page, the same way an advertisement in a printed magazine is matched to the magazine rather than to the subscriber. No profile of you is assembled, and there is no cross-site pixel to accumulate one.
What about your data
Telegram stores what it needs to work as a cloud service: your messages so they sync across devices, and your contacts so you can find people you already know. It does not use that data to target advertising and does not sell it. You can request a full copy of everything held on your account from Settings, Advanced, Export Telegram Data, and you can delete the account outright, which removes the messages with it.
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