(July 1): India asked Meta Platforms Inc to hold back for now on rolling out a new feature that lets users pick their own WhatsApp account handles, raising concerns it may trigger a spike in online fraud.
WhatsApp this week began allowing customers to reserve a unique username, with plans for them to go operational later this year. The idea is to eventually allow the platform’s three billion members to communicate without exchanging numbers. The feature is aimed at boosting user privacy, according to Meta.
But the move has attracted the scrutiny of the government in WhatsApp’s largest market. India’s tech ministry sent a notice to Meta saying it believes usernames may potentially increase incidents of online fraud, phishing, scams and impersonation of individuals and state agencies, according to an excerpt of the document reviewed by Bloomberg News. The agency directed the US company to delay the feature’s rollout until further consultation, according to the notice.
Meta said it has built several layers of defences against scams into WhatsApp’s username feature, and that it’ll only high-profile names to be claimed only by legitimate owners as part of an effort to counter impersonation. That statement came after the Press Trust of India reported that the government was concerned about the misuse of usernames.
“Other users need to know the exact username to message you, we will limit how many new people an account can contact, block repeated attempts to guess someone’s username key, and have systems to detect and remove activity showing common impersonation and abuse patterns,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said late Wednesday.
India’s tech ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
See also: Meta building cloud business to sell excess AI compute — Bloomberg
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