As WhatsApp battles security concerns over its new Username feature on the messaging platform, Zoho-owned homegrown messaging app Arattai has disabled the Username feature.
“We will be disabling the user name based account feature in Arattai, to comply with the regulatory change,” Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu said in a social media post on X.
It is unclear whether the Government has issued a notice to Zoho or it is a voluntary move by the company given recent developments.
“We have had the feature even before
WhatsApp. So the writing on the wall was clear, “ Vembu told Businessline .
Arattai has had the feature before WhatsApp and it uses the feature as a specific utility tool, wherein it is strictly an opt-in configuration.
Other messaging apps such as Signal and Telegram too have the username feature. Messaging app Signal did not respond to businessline’s queries.
This comes at a time when the Indian government through Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has sent WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram a notice about the usernames feature it announced last week. The notice directs the company to not roll out this feature until “consultation on this point is achieved to the satisfaction of the Government“
Digital advocacy organisations like the Internet Freedom Foundation has raised concerns that such a notice by the Government has no clear basis in law. “It is an attempt by the executive to decide what a company may build and ship, which no statute permits,” the IFF said in a statement on Thursday.
WhatsApp also issued a FAQ on Thursday addressing concerns around impersonation, scams and unwanted contact. India is a key market for WhatsApp, and the messaging platform has over 500 million users in the country.
Published on July 2, 2026
