What's in a (user)name? WhatsApp wants businesses to have one. It hasn't said who's protected from fakes

**Rachel Varghese** (0:01)
Plus, last week, WhatsApp decided to go through a major identity change. You've probably heard about it already. The platform was rolling out reservations for WhatsApp usernames in India, with the full feature launching in late 2026
After years of having accounts identified by numbers, the platform was finally letting users go by handles of their choice instead. The same way you do on Instagram or X. The feature was first announced by Kunal Shah, the former CEO of Cred, who rather dramatically left his position at Cred, to become the global head of WhatsApp. After his move, one of the first things he did was tweet out the username reservation rollout.
Then, just a couple days later, Meti or the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of India, issued a notice asking WhatsApp to pause the rollout because it warned that this username feature could facilitate the impersonation of individuals, public authorities, financial institutions, and government agencies. It also gave WhatsApp till July 6th to explain both the feature and what the internal safeguards would look like to lessen the risk of scams and impersonations. And if WhatsApp did not comply, it would see regulatory action under India's IT laws. July 6th was this Monday. And as of today, on July 8th, since WhatsApp and Meti have been having preliminary conversations, Meti has extended the deadline to July 9th, which is tomorrow. Now WhatsApp's pitch with the usernames is privacy. Right now, once your number is shared with a person or once it becomes part of a large group, it's exposed forever. Plus, right now, phone numbers are linked to all sorts of accounts and login IDs for us. One leak can compromise a lot. So usernames fix that by ensuring that only the people who know your handle can reach out to you.
On the other hand, Meti also has a valid case. In the way that usernames are being rolled out right now, any one can book any sort of a username. And there is a genuine risk of impersonation and phishing. And these worries are well-founded. India as a whole is already vulnerable to such scams. Meta's own adversarial threat report in March found that online scams syndicate targeted users in India more frequently than any country other than the US. Even the Indian government reports that cybercrime incidents have more than doubled in 2024 to more than 2 million cases from what used to be 1 million cases in 2022
The thing is, Dho, for WhatsApp, this whole move is not just about user privacy. It's also about giving businesses a memorable permanent identity on the platform that can replace yet another string of numbers.
So far, though, Meta has only committed reserving the names of the most popular celebrities and institutions. But the nature of scams in India has evolved into something a little bit more personal than that. What Meta hasn't accounted for are the names of specific branches of banks or a local bakery or even a coaching center. So in trying to solve for both user privacy and business identity, did WhatsApp create a new problem for the very people and businesses it's trying to fix for? Welcome to Daybreak. This is Podcast from The Ken. I'm your host, Rachel Varghese. And every day of the week, my co-host, Snigdha Sharma and I will bring you one new story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Wednesday, the 8th of July.
Ever since the Metis Notice has been issued, WhatsApp's assurances to the government already cover a lot of ground. Here's what the company is saying. Firstly, it claims that to protect users, it's not going to build a directory of usernames into the platform, unlike say a telegram. This is basically so that usernames are not discoverable to random people on the internet who might want to try finding usernames by guessing, or just happen to by chance.
Next, WhatsApp is also introducing a username pin as an extra layer of security. How this works is that even if someone does find your username or has it, they would also have to input a specific pin number to actually be able to get in touch with you.
To be clear though, all of this is on an opt-in basis. Usernames are not going to be default, at least not yet. And even if you do choose to go with a username instead of a number on the app, the pin is also a choice on top of that.
A lot of this is obviously a way for WhatsApp to catch up to its competitors like Telegram and Signal. Popularity of these apps with their users prove that people do want and like the username feature and the control it gives them over their own privacy.