Truecaller clashes with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India over anti-spam rules

Truecaller has begun a public battle with India’s telecommunications regulator over rules governing caller ID apps, saying the country’s anti-spam framework makes it more difficult to protect consumers from unwanted calls in its largest market.

On Wednesday, CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala (pictured above) I took to X to publicly challenge the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), accusing the watchdog of blocking Truecaller from displaying community-reported spam information for calls from the country’s designated 1400 and 1600 series numbers, a restriction it said enabled the misuse of those numbers and eroded trust in legitimate business calls.

The disagreement stems from a framework foot In 2024, Indian telecom authorities have designated the 1400 and 1600 series numbers for business communications, with companies using the former for telemarketing calls and the latter for service and transaction-related calls. TRAI later ordered the move to the dedicated numbering series, saying the move would help consumers identify legitimate business communications and curb spam and fraudulent calls.

The framework was introduced amid growing concerns over spam and fraudulent calls in India, one of the world’s largest telecom markets, where regulators and telecom operators have implemented multiple measures to curb fraudulent calls. Last year, India’s Ministry of Communications He said Authorities disconnected more than 2.1 million fraudulent mobile phone numbers and took action against more than 100,000 entities over the previous year, underscoring the scale of the challenge.

This policy has led to unintended consequences, Jhunjhunwala said. Citing internal company data, he said consumers have increasingly lost trust in the specific number series, with Truecaller users ignoring 81% of calls from the 1400 series and 79% from the 1600 series over the past eight months. During the same period, users manually blocked 74 million calls from the two series, while daily blocking actions against 1600 series numbers have more than tripled since October 2025, he added.

Unable to mark these numbers as spam, Truecaller instead introduced a “Frequently Blocked” badge to alert users when a number from the specified string is blocked by multiple people.

The unusual public criticism came after the Indian business daily Economic Times. I mentioned TRAI has sought powers under the Indian Information Technology Act to take action against caller ID apps like Truecaller, Hiya and Whoscall for classifying designated 1400 and 1600 series numbers as spam.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority and India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which would consider any such proposal, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The dispute comes at a pivotal time for Truecaller, whose primary business was in the caller ID field Facing increasing regulatory and competitive pressures Like a company Expanding into new products and Services. India remains its largest market by a wide margin More than 350 million From her 500 million monthly active users It is based in the country, according to the company.

Truecaller will share its data with India’s Ministry of Information Technology as part of the regulatory process, Jhunjhunwala said, arguing that any decision on caller ID apps should be evidence-based.

“Punishing the bad actors, not actors like Truecaller that have a huge positive impact,” he wrote.