Key facts
- Truecaller CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala publicly criticized India's Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) over new anti-spam rules.
- The dispute concerns rules that mandate dedicated number series for commercial communications, hindering Truecaller's ability to flag spam.
- Jhunjhunwala claims these rules have led to users ignoring a high percentage of calls from designated commercial numbers.
- Truecaller has introduced a 'Frequently Blocked' badge as an alternative to marking these numbers as spam.
- The conflict arose after reports that TRAI sought authority to penalize caller ID apps for labeling designated numbers as spam.
Truecaller has publicly clashed with India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) over the country's anti-spam regulations, arguing that the framework hinders its ability to protect consumers in its largest market. CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala took to X to challenge TRAI, stating that the regulator's rules prevent Truecaller from flagging calls from India's designated 1400 and 1600 number series as spam. These number series were introduced in 2024 for commercial communications, with the intention of helping consumers identify legitimate business calls and curb spam.
Jhunjhunwala contended that the policy has led to unintended consequences, citing internal data that suggests Truecaller users have lost trust in these designated numbers, leading to high rates of call avoidance. He noted that users ignored 81% of calls from the 1400 series and 79% from the 1600 series over the past eight months, and manually blocked 74 million calls from these series. Unable to mark them as spam, Truecaller introduced a "Frequently Blocked" badge to alert users.
The public criticism follows a report that TRAI is seeking powers under India’s Information Technology Act to take action against caller ID apps like Truecaller for labeling numbers from the designated series as spam. Truecaller, which has over 350 million of its 500 million monthly active users in India, plans to share its data with the Indian IT ministry, advocating for evidence-based decisions that penalize malicious actors rather than services that provide a positive impact.