Truecaller has opened a public spat with India’s telecoms regulator over rules governing caller ID apps, saying the country’s anti-spam framework makes it harder to protect consumers from unwanted calls in its biggest market.
On Wednesday, CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala (pictured above) went to X to publicly challenge the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), accusing the watchdog of preventing Truecaller from displaying community-reported spam information for calls from the country’s dedicated 1400 and 1600 number ranges, a restriction it said had allowed those numbers to be misused and eroded trust in legitimate business calls.
The disagreement stems from context was introduced in 2024, under which India’s telecom authorities designated the 1400 and 1600 number ranges for commercial communications, with businesses using the former for telemarketing calls and the latter for service and transaction-related calls. TRAI later specified the move to the dedicated numbering sequence, saying the move will help consumers identify legitimate business communications and curb spam and scam calls.
The framework was launched amid growing concerns about spam calls and fraud in India, one of the world’s largest telecom markets, where regulators and telecom operators have implemented multiple measures to curb fraudulent communications. Last year, the Indian Ministry of Communications he said Authorities have disconnected more than 2.1 million fake mobile phone numbers and taken action against more than 100,000 entities in the past year, underscoring the scale of the challenge.
Jhunjhunwala argued that the policy has produced unintended consequences. Citing internal company data, he said consumers are increasingly losing confidence in the designated 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 number ranges, while daily blocking actions on numbers in the 1600 range have more than tripled since October 2025, he said.
Unable to flag these numbers as spam, Truecaller has instead introduced a “Frequently Blocked” badge to alert users when a number in the specified range has been blocked by multiple people.
The unusual public criticism came after the Indian business newspaper The Economic Times was mentioned that TRAI had sought powers under India’s Information Technology Act to take action against caller ID apps like Truecaller, Hiya and Whoscall for flagging numbers from the designated 1400 and 1600 ranges as spam.
TRAI and India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which would review any such proposal, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The dispute comes at a pivotal time for Truecaller, whose core caller ID business is facing increasing regulatory and competitive pressures as the company expands into new products and services. India remains its largest market by a wide margin, with more than 350 million of the 500 million monthly active users based in the country, according to the company.
Jhunjhunwala said Truecaller would share its data with India’s IT ministry as part of the regulatory process, arguing that any decision on caller ID apps should be evidence-based.
“Punish the bad actors, not the ones like Truecaller who have a significant positive impact,” he wrote.
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