RCS ads in Google Messages temporarily disabled in India following abuse from businesses
The tech company Google Messages‘ RCS (Rich Communication Services) has decided to turn off RCS ads functionality in the country. Google has confirmed to disable the feature in India.
Many businesses in India have been using Google’s RCS for the past few months to deliver ads and promotional messages, which leads to a lot of spam. RCS users have been complaining about receiving multiple messages every day, some from senders labelled as “verified Business” on the Google Messages app.
“We are aware that some businesses are abusing our anti-spam policies to send promotional messages to users in India. We are disabling this feature in India while we work with the industry to improve the experience for users,” a company spokesperson said in a statement late on Wednesday.
However the company has not explained exactly how it plans to deal with unsolicited marketing, this decision to stop business messaging on RCS is only a temporary fix. All businesses in India using RCS have to relay messages through Google’s Jibe Cloud platform so it is possible for Google to “prevent abuse in the future”. Additionally, the default Google Messages app on Android could also get some new upgrades to detect spam in the future, reports state.
Last month, multiple users took to social media platforms that RCS ads in Google Messages appear to be coming from “Verified Business” accounts and the frequency of such ads has picked up over the last few months in the country.
The users reported a deluge of ads, primarily related to personal loans, gambling companies, and life insurance. Multiple reports said that the problem has been around for about a year, and “complaints appear to be coming overwhelmingly from users based in India”.
“The trend initially blew up with Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bajaj Finserv, Buddy Loan, and PolicyBazaar have turned out to be the biggest offenders,” the reports claimed.
While several brands globally use messaging apps and SMS texts to advertise new products, these ads going on in India “are not necessarily the result of a user’s buying activity,” the reports noted.
[With Inputs from IANS]
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