Airtel, Google team up to block spam on enhanced messaging service

Bharti Airtel and Google announced Sunday they are collaborating to enable spam protection over RCS (Rich Communication Services) messages in a global first to tackle unsolicited messages on the over-the-top messaging platform.

India's second largest telecom operator also called upon OTT players such as Meta, Telegram and Signal to similarly collaborate with Airtel to help users against spam calls and digital fraud.

The joint initiative serves as a blueprint for the industry where telco-grade verification is combined with platform-level intelligence and AI-driven checks across sender authentication, customer consent and real-time threat detection is offered to Airtel users, the companies said in a joint statement.

ET had reported about the development in December.

"In a global first, an OTT platform has integrated Airtel's spam filter into its messaging services. We are therefore now live with Google, having ensured that requisite checks have been implemented with an objective that our customer’s safety stays paramount. We also call upon other OTT platforms including Meta, Telegram and Signal to work with us in a similar manner to eradicate the menace of spam for customers," an Airtel spokesperson told ET.

With the collaboration, Airtel users get access to high quality multimedia messaging from Google’s RCS platform, all while benefiting from enhanced protection from mobile spam and digital fraud.

This is a global-first partnership where a telecom operator has gone beyond the traditional telecom domain to protect its users across OTT platforms such as RCS. So far, OTTs have been kept outside the telecom operator’s stringent rules on spam control.

The offering is part of Airtel’s growing portfolio of consumer-grade services to protect them from spam and fraud. Bharti Airtel has also launched an AI-driven spam filter and OTP-protection tools.

“In a pioneering initiative, we have now partnered with Google to extend customer protection beyond the telco domain and made the rich messaging platform safer and more secure. We now call on the broader OTT communication platforms to work with us and make sure that customers are protected from the spam and financial fraud menace,” Gopal Vittal, vice chairman, Bharti Airtel said.

The Airtel and Google-led RCS platform will offer stringent real-time checks to validate message sender’s identity, respect user’s do-not-disturb (DND) preferences, block spam message, and throttle messages from senders flagged by both Airtel and Google’s spam filters.

“This pioneering partnership in India with Airtel helps ensure that mobile users can communicate with confidence. We are committed to continuing to work with the broader ecosystem of carriers to standardize messaging security and create a consistent and trusted messaging experience for all RCS messaging users around the world.” Sameer Samat, president, Android Ecosystem at Google said.