Episode
WhatsApp wants businesses to have a username. It hasn't said who's protected from fakes
- Podcast
- Daybreak
- Published
- Jul 8, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1014
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://share.transistor.fm/s/4af4649a
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Summary
WhatsApp just announced usernames for Indian users. Two days later, the Indian government told it to stop. The privacy case for usernames is real — phone numbers are permanent, linked to everything, and once shared, impossible to take back. But India already has 43,000 WhatsApp-related cybercrimes in a single quarter. And when TechCrunch tested the feature, handles like "rbi_verify," "indiamodi," and "ambanijio" were still available for anyone who gets there first. WhatsApp has until tomorrow to explain itself to MeitY. And even if the deadline keeps getting extended, the problem isn't going away. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.