WhatsApp spam is getting out of control in India
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Loading... - Vivaan Arun
- 10 Feb 2023
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WhatsApp made it easy for businesses to contact users, and the feature is now being heavily exploited.
WhatsApp has over 2 billion users around the world, and India alone accounts for a quarter of that userbase, touting over 500 million active accounts. Meta tried a lot of ways to monetize the service in the country, and its recent push to get businesses on the platform has proven to be a winner — at least for Meta. For users, not so much.
I've been getting an increasing number of spam messages on WhatsApp over the last two months, and it is now at a point where it is continually frustrating. What makes it worse is that all of these messages are from businesses that should not have been able to contact me in the first place.
It started innocuously enough with my bank; it started touting all the services available on WhatsApp, positioning the platform as an alternative to calling customer service. That was fine, but immediately after that I started getting marketing messages from the bank's insurance and home loans divisions, and they were sent from a different account, so I had to individually block those numbers.
The trickle turned into a deluge in December and January, and I started getting marketing texts from a cavalcade of brands, including Myntra, Borosil, Eureka Forbes, P&G, M&S, Domino's, Tanishq, and Cult Fit. Now, I bought something from each of these brands in the last 12 months, and while I didn't sign up to receive messages, it's increasingly clear that WhatsApp is becoming an extension of SMS. Read More…
