- WhatsApp has paused the rollout of a new feature that would allow users to choose a username instead of a phone number, following security concerns raised by regulators.
- India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ordered the suspension, fearing the update could significantly increase online fraud, phishing, digital arrest scams, and impersonation attacks.
- The messaging app had initially presented the username feature as a privacy enhancement, aiming to protect users' phone numbers from being shared with unknown contacts in group chats.
- Indian authorities, representing WhatsApp's largest market with over 850 million users, intervened despite WhatsApp's assurances that users would still require a phone number and that systems were in place to detect abuse.
- WhatsApp stated it had reserved high-profile names for legitimate owners and implemented measures such as limiting new contacts and blocking repeated attempts to guess usernames to combat impersonation and abuse patterns.
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