Bharti Airtel and Google have announced a collaboration to offer a secure and engaging messaging experience for millions of users in India. By combining Airtel’s network intelligence with Google’s rich communications services (RCS) platform and spam filtering, users would get to experience RCS messaging with high-quality photo/video and interactive elements like message reactions, all while benefiting from enhanced protections that significantly reduce mobile spam and digital fraud.
Airtel has, to date, through all its innovative spam fighting initiatives, blocked a staggering 71 billion spam calls and 2.9 billion spam SMSes that has led to a huge 68.7 per cent decrease in the value of financial losses on its network. A critical protection gap however continues to exist within the digital ecosystem. While traditional mobile networks that offer messaging operate under safety standards and telco-grade safeguards, many other non-telco communication platforms and standalone apps lack these safeguards. These channels have therefore increasingly been exploited by sophisticated bad actors, becoming common tools for financial fraud and invasive spam.
This innovative partnership between Airtel and Google is designed to bridge that gap, extending the accountability of telecom-grade safeguards to the modern messaging experience. By integrating Airtel’s intelligence into the RCS platform and Google’s existing spam protections, the companies are setting a new benchmark for a secure carrier-backed messaging service.
Commenting on the collaboration, executive vice chairman, Airtel, said, “At Airtel, we are obsessed with customer protection and continue to be at the forefront to lead India’s fight against spam. We do this by harnessing data, intelligent networks and relentless innovations so our customers are protected end-to-end. 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 overt-the-top communication platforms to work with us and make sure that customers are protected from the spam and financial fraud menace.”
Meanwhile, president, android ecosystem, Google, said, “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 standardise messaging security and create a consistent and trusted messaging experience for all RCS messaging users around the world.”
Brands leveraging the messaging service for enterprise communications will be able to foster trust amongst their customers by enabling them to easily distinguish legitimate business messages from spam and stay protected from potential risks that may emerge in other messaging platforms without these stringent checks. The solution will enable brands to build deeper engagement with their customers who will feel safer and in more control. This will, in turn, lead to enduring customer relationships which are imperative for business growth and success.
The platform will offer stringent real-time checks to:
- Validate message sender’s identity using telco-backed business identity checks.
- Respect users’ do-not-disturb preferences by categorising communications as promotional or transactional and imposing restrictions, accordingly.
- Block spam business messages from landing on customers’ devices.
- Filter malicious domains through a multitiered threat detection layer.
- Help keep users safe by throttling messages from individual senders who have been jointly flagged by Google and Airtel’s artificial intelligence-powered spam filters.
- The messages sent through the RCS messaging service platform can be directly viewed in Google Messages, available on most android phones.
