The Indian messaging app has captured attention, but privacy gaps could hinder long-term adoption.
India’s homegrown messaging app, Zoho Arattai, has seen an extraordinary surge in downloads, briefly challenging global giants like WhatsApp. The app offers a full suite of features, from voice and video calls to document sharing and community channels, matching many expectations of modern messaging platforms.
Yet, a critical privacy gap looms: Arattai’s text chats lack end-to-end encryption (E2EE). While voice and video calls are secured, the most fundamental form of communication-text messaging remains unencrypted or protected only on the server side. This leaves messages potentially accessible to Zoho or vulnerable to breaches if servers are compromised.
Zoho maintains that user data is stored securely in India and is not shared externally, but data localization alone does not guarantee true privacy. End-to-end encryption ensures that only the sender and recipient can read messages—a standard many users now expect as a baseline.
The absence of E2EE carries several consequences:
- Trust Concerns: Users transitioning from apps like Signal or WhatsApp may hesitate to adopt Arattai for sensitive conversations.
- Data Vulnerability: Without encryption, message content could be exposed in the event of a server breach or insider access.
- Competitive Weakness: As privacy becomes a key differentiator, apps without robust chat encryption risk losing ground to secure alternatives.
Arattai has demonstrated its potential to capture users’ interest, but full, transparent end-to-end encryption for text chats is essential if it hopes to move from short-term curiosity to long-term adoption as a trusted messaging platform.
