kYou may be asked for your phone number when visiting a store, whether you're there to get something fixed or to purchase something. Then, within seconds of sharing it, you might receive messages from the store on WhatsApp, and some of those may have nothing to do with your recent visit. Why did this happen when the store didn't ask for your consent to deliver updates and ads on WhatsApp? You may have noticed that the employee tablets have the option to toggle it off. However, it curiously stays on by default.

What's up with the WhatsApp spam?

Users in some of the biggest markets for WhatsApp, like India, routinely deal with scores of advertisements disguised as helpful business communication, especially after WhatsApp Business picked up the pace. A business account on WhatsApp allows companies to reach their customers where they are. No less than 400 million of them are in India, making WhatsApp the top encrypted messaging platform in the world.

As advertisers realize the potential of a platform as big as WhatsApp, unsolicited messaging has become a menace for users, making it hard to keep track of personal chats. The spam situation on WhatsApp is getting out of hand, considering the scale, and there isn't much that users can do to shield their WhatsApp chat boxes.

Your phone number is everywhere!

Password hygiene, aided by a solid password manager, has generally been poor among many Indians, with password reuse a common practice. As a way to provide users with a more secure login alternative, many mainstream services, such as Hotstar, have turned to the phone number and OTP combination, doing away with the email and password option.

While OTP verification for each login is easy to follow, even for first-time internet users, companies have started to arm-twist users into coughing up their phone numbers. The practice is so prevalent that many apps won't let you explore the interface before signing up, and websites require your phone number for basic interaction.

For example, when you get a quote for your car repairs, you can't get it without sharing your phone number. Even if you choose not to use the services, you may continue to receive advertisements from the brand on WhatsApp. And this happens offline, too. Checkout counters at many stores need you to share your phone number for billing. During (and even a few months after) India's nationwide lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was impossible to walk into a place without giving away your mobile number (among other personal details).

Even when someone hasn't dealt with a service, a company can still get their phone number through the company's "partners."

Even if you never interacted with a brand, they can obtain your phone number through their so-called partners. This usually results in you receiving random WhatsApp and text messages (read: pushy advertisements) from that company. Many users have complained about a similar experience with different brands. In some cases, these companies mixed up their targeted user's personal information, which is a clear sign that the phone numbers were picked up from illicit databases that are prone to such data errors.

This aggressive marketing that involves acquiring personal details illegitimately is deplorable and has been picking up the pace lately. What's more worrying is that the users don't have a say in how their personally identifiable information is used, especially without any data privacy law in the country. Being forced to give your number at random places usually means that it will end up in lists from data brokers that spammers use to push ads or target unsuspecting users to commit fraud.

Consent? What's that?

Once you share your phone number with an app or website—even for a one-off use—it creates an account for you, whether you want it or not. And when you want to create an account with an app, your consent to receive WhatsApp communication (or text/email, for that matter) isn't taken in most cases. The companies assume that by agreeing to their complicated, jargon-filled terms and conditions, you authorize them to add you to all their mailing lists at once, which they let you unsubscribe from one by one.

WhatsApp put a limit on bulk messaging and forwards on personal accounts to manage misinformation (another, more pressing issue on the platform), but no such limitation applies to business accounts. With easy access to a sizable data pool of phone numbers, which may have been acquired legitimately or otherwise, WhatsApp users become an easy target for companies involved in aggressive marketing.

Similar ad spam in Google Messages in India.

We first reported something similar about Google Messages, where Android users were bombarded with ads from businesses they didn't have a relationship with. It's particularly a shame if you paid top dollar for one of the best Android phones. As WhatsApp Business gains prominence and becomes a primary way of communication for brands to reach their existing and potential customers, the spam in your WhatsApp inbox will grow unless they become mindful of your personal space and privacy.

But that appears unlikely as companies are getting more aggressive with their approach toward WhatsApp communications. Many brands have started using dozens of business accounts on WhatsApp. This allows them to continue annoying their existing and potential customers even when they blocked one or more marketing accounts. More brands have started adopting this "workaround" to make WhatsApp a spammy mess.

Brands must be more mindful of their messaging frequency and ensure the content is relevant to the user, as sending massive file attachments in advertisements isn't a good idea. Without any oversight, they can do whatever they want once they secure a user's phone number.

While most companies don't bother to ask for your consent before spamming your WhatsApp inbox, some brands do. For instance, Policybazaar, notorious for being the peskiest for its incessant sales calls, gives you granular control over the kind of WhatsApp communication you want from the company. On the other hand, Tata Cliq lets you turn off order updates on WhatsApp from the payment page, but the toggle magically turns on before each order.

So, what options do I have?

The WhatsApp's spam management filters aren't as effective as Gmail, and neither can you report spammy businesses to an overseeing government body like TRAI. So, what options do you have to fight the ever-growing WhatsApp spam? Your only real options are the basic reporting and blocking tools that WhatsApp has baked into the app. For every new contact that messages you, WhatsApp lets you report them in case you weren't expecting messages from them. Blocking businesses, on the other hand, is an extreme step and not something everyone would prefer to use, especially if you want to continue receiving important updates, like order tracking.

Some brands are courteous and offer you a direct option. For others, report and block.

With some brands, you may see the option to send a STOP command to halt their messages on WhatsApp. But the problem is that not all businesses offer this option. They may provide a way to toggle off their WhatsApp communications via their website or app. You must dig into their communication or notification settings to find these options.

Some brands have the option to stop their spam inside their apps.

There's a good chance that the service doesn't let you do that on your own. In that case, you can call their customer support, find a way to talk to a person after running circles with a lousy chatbot, and get your number off their WhatsApp list. But that's not a sure-shot way to eliminate all the spam. Some support agents have suggested that affected users ignore the unsolicited messaging without providing them with any respite.

And it's more likely that you will come across such brands that are indifferent toward your plight caused by them. No matter how many times you report their spam or disallow them from sending you any more messages on WhatsApp, they continue to bother you. In that case, you can archive those chats and let WhatsApp keep them archived even when new messages arrive. This way, you'll keep pesky brands out of your main inbox, giving you some respite until the brand finds a new way to pester you.

To tackle this widespread and worsening spam situation, WhatsApp will have to step in with tools and regulations that are better equipped than what we have now. Its current implementation appears half-baked, as it's found to have mistakenly blocked businesses that weren't spamming their users. This shows how glaringly lacking WhatsApp's automated systems are at identifying and taking action against spammy accounts while simultaneously hurting small businesses.

The messaging app needs to segregate your personal chats from those sent by businesses to tidy up your inbox. Google Messages started doing something similar to that not too long ago. Additionally, like Android apps are required to categorize their notifications, WhatsApp could make it a requirement for its business accounts so that users can cut through the clutter and receive the messages they need. Finally, the STOP command that some brands voluntarily offer should be a prerequisite for a business account to be able to send bulk messages.

WhatsApp is a big part of people's lives

In countries where WhatsApp is ubiquitous, it's more than a messaging app, and it's hard to live without. Some chatbots provide essential customer support, help you make hospital appointments, and some businesses run entirely on WhatsApp. Many small businesses were almost shut during an hours-long WhatsApp outage in 2021.

Even without business accounts, which offer additional sales features, people use their personal accounts to take orders, receive payments, and provide tracking information for their products and services. WhatsApp even doubles up as a free Slack replacement for some organizations.

For an app that is such a big part of people's everyday lives, there should be an easy middle ground between your choice to receive important updates on WhatsApp and companies flooding your inbox with promotions. WhatsApp and WhatsApp alone can fix this mess or at least bring some order to the brands running wild. The ball is now in your court, Meta.