Power & authority come in way of checking spam on OTT platforms

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the industry regulator- Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai)-have so far had mixed success in checking spams and online scams on OTT platforms WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, spotlighting the jurisdictional complexities associated with enforcing curbs on potential offenders, officials told ET.

An official said while WhatsApp is cooperating with the DoT to some extent and has blocked numbers as requested by the government, there is no visible control yet over Telegram and Signal-platforms that need to take concrete steps to curb scams.

"WhatsApp remains committed to ensuring a safe and secure user experience, including weeding out bad actors from the platform," said a company spokesperson.


"We continue to make significant product investments with safety features... that help to automatically screen out spam, scams, and calls from unknown numbers... Our advanced spam detection technology prevents automation of our services and we ban accounts attempting to spam others."

The platform banned more than 6 million accounts in July, said the spokesperson.

To be sure, the OTT platforms do not fall under the DoT and any action, if required, has to be taken by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity), as per the intermediary rules under the IT Act. While the DoT can coordinate with OTT platforms, it cannot take any action against them. DoT has requested Meity multiple times seeking help regarding OTT apps, particularly Signal and Telegram, but there has been little success. One official said DoT has blocked over 20 million mobile numbers so far, but there is little outcome on Signal and Telegram.

Queries sent to Signal and Telegram remained unanswered.

Telcos Concerned

The telecom operators have been highlighting the issue of rising instances of spam on OTT platforms and all the measures to control the menace do not work on OTTs as they are not regulated, either by DoT or Trai.

The regulator, as part of its efforts to curb spam, regularly shares phone numbers as well as headers and templates of commercial communications with telcos for blocking. But of the data, over 55% belong to OTTs where the telcos can't initiate any action.

Every time the regulator asks the telcos to block numbers for spam, their corresponding OTT numbers too have to be blocked. But since telcos can't do it, the numbers are provided to platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram by the DoT for blocking, who have to do that at their end. But unlike telcos, the OTT platforms are not bound by any licence to block the numbers. Further, there are international numbers, from which spam continues to come and telcos have no control over it.

Bharti Airtel, which has launched an AI-based solution to curb spam, too has said the solution won't work on OTT apps. "That is a pain point . We have been very open with the DoT and the regulator to crack down hard, not just on calls and messages but OTT calls and messages and RCS messages, where a lot of spam can happen. We need a holistic regulatory framework," Bharti Airtel MD and CEO Gopal Vittal said.