Truecaller CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala has publicly criticised India’s telecom regulator, accusing it of worsening the country’s spam call problem through rules that force caller ID apps to whitelist government-sanctioned promotional number series.
In a statement on X, Jhunjhunwala said over 51 million calls from these whitelisted series go unanswered daily, calling it a spike users can see for themselves. He said Truecaller is currently barred from flagging these calls as spam, prompting the company to introduce a “Frequently Blocked” badge after user-initiated blocks on such numbers crossed 1 lakh a day. He argued that regulating caller ID platforms this way strips away community-driven spam data and effectively hands bad actors more room to scam users.
The dispute traces back to a TRAI mandate under anti-spam rules introduced in February 2025, requiring apps like Truecaller to whitelist verified 140 and 160 number series meant for legitimate businesses. According to Jhunjhunwala, banks and corporate telemarketers began exploiting these verified channels for aggressive cold-calling, while the legal mandate to whitelist them paralysed Truecaller’s crowdsourced spam-detection system, forcing it to mark these numbers as “clean” despite mounting user complaints.
The clash adds to a broader pattern of Indian regulators stepping into private platform design choices, following earlier interventions by the Department of Telecommunications and MeitY around WhatsApp’s SIM-linked registration and anonymous username features.
