Hustler Words – India’s telecom regulatory body has significantly expanded its anti-spam framework, now mandating that caller-ID and call-management applications transmit user-generated spam reports directly to network providers. This directive has ignited a strong reaction from Truecaller, a leading spam-blocking app, which labels the new regulation as distinctly anti-competitive.
On Friday, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the nation’s principal telecom regulator, revised its guidelines concerning commercial communications. The updated rules now compel caller-ID and call-management apps—those enabling users to flag calls as spam or junk—to forward these reports to a blockchain-powered platform managed by telecom operators. This sophisticated platform is designed to monitor commercial communications and enforce anti-spam protocols across the network.
TRAI asserts that this regulatory shift aims to broaden the collective pool of spam intelligence, thereby enhancing the efficacy of actions taken against persistent spammers. The move effectively integrates the valuable data gathered by third-party applications with the telecom industry’s existing enforcement infrastructure.
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However, Truecaller expressed its concerns to hustlerwords.com, characterizing the new requirement as a "one-way exchange" that is "anti-competitive." The company argues that this mandate facilitates the transfer of commercially valuable data from specialized call-management applications, such as its own, directly to telecom operators.
India stands as Truecaller’s most substantial market, contributing over 350 million of its global 500 million-plus monthly active users. The Stockholm-based firm relies on a combination of community-sourced reports, automated detection algorithms, and other sophisticated signals to identify and block unwanted calls.
These new regulations emerge as India continues to grapple with an overwhelming volume of spam and fraudulent calls. A February report from Truecaller indicated that its Indian users encountered approximately 42 billion spam calls in 2025, encompassing calls that were blocked, labeled, or simply ignored. The company also reported blocking nearly 12 billion spam calls within that year.
This isn’t the first instance of a regulatory clash between Truecaller and Indian authorities regarding spam call management. Previously, the Swedish company voiced objections to restrictions that prevented call-management apps from automatically categorizing calls from specific government-designated number ranges as spam. Truecaller contended that such exemptions could inadvertently allow unwanted communications to bypass its filtering mechanisms.
Despite these objections, Friday’s amendments uphold that particular restriction. The revised rules explicitly prohibit call-management applications from blanket blocking, filtering, or spam-tagging calls originating from designated number series used for promotional, service, and transactional communications. Individual users, however, retain the autonomy to block such calls on their personal devices, as clarified by the regulator.
"While our internal data and user feedback unequivocally demonstrate a surge in spam due to this ‘free pass’ for spammers, we have maintained compliance with this particular directive since late last year," a Truecaller spokesperson affirmed.
Sumeysh Srivastava, a partner at New Delhi-based consulting firm The Quantum Hub, who spearheads its telecom-regulation policy work, commented that the latest amendment effectively bridges two distinct operational layers. Telecom operators provide the foundational network infrastructure and manage the blockchain-based anti-spam system, while caller-ID applications function atop this network to identify and filter calls.
This integration, Srivastava noted to hustlerwords.com, introduces a spectrum of technical and jurisdictional complexities. Key questions arise regarding the specific reporting standards apps will be required to adhere to, and how the mandate will be enforced against entities that are not themselves telecom operators.
A draft proposal from March (PDF) had suggested leveraging India’s existing IT laws for enforcement. However, Srivastava pointed out that the recent announcement did not explicitly confirm whether this enforcement mechanism has been retained in the final regulatory framework.
Furthermore, the precise extent of information that apps will be compelled to provide under the updated regulation remains somewhat ambiguous. Kazim Rizvi, founding director of The Dialogue, a New Delhi-based policy think tank, explained to hustlerwords.com that requiring an app to transmit a specific user-reported spam incident is fundamentally different from demanding the sharing of broader datasets, reputation signals, or the analytical systems used to identify suspicious calls.
Rizvi emphasized that the rules necessitate greater clarity on what specific information must be transmitted, how users will be notified or asked for consent, and the subsequent retention and utilization protocols for such data.
TRAI did not respond to hustlerwords.com’s inquiries regarding the exact information apps would be required to share, nor whether the rule would extend to spam-reporting functionalities integrated into smartphone operating systems and dialers, such as Android and iOS.
New Rules for AI-Powered Communications
The amendments also proactively address the increasing prevalence of software and AI voice agents in making calls. Calls initiated automatically, without direct human dialing, will now fall under TRAI’s application-to-person (A2P) framework. This encompasses robocalls and communications utilizing prerecorded or artificial voices.
Companies employing such automated systems will be required to declare their usage and the associated phone numbers to their respective telecom operators in advance. Undeclared A2P calls will be categorized and treated as spam, TRAI stated.
The critical determinant, Srivastava clarified, lies in the initiation method of a call, rather than solely whether it employs an AI-generated voice. This distinction leaves some ambiguity concerning AI-assisted calls where human involvement still plays a role in the initiation process.
Satya N. Gupta, a former additional secretary at TRAI, informed hustlerwords.com that the new regulations do not aim to restrict businesses from leveraging AI or other automated calling technologies. Instead, they primarily impose a disclosure requirement, mandating that businesses inform telecom operators of their use.
Telecom operators will also gain the authority to levy a termination charge of up to 5 paise (approximately 0.052 cents USD) per minute on A2P calls. However, calls made using certain designated number ranges will be exempt from this charge.
Rizvi conveyed to hustlerwords.com that the expanded definition could potentially encompass calls made using software even when a human is still involved, such as those from contact centers and click-to-call services. "Without a clearer distinction, the A2P category risks becoming overly broad, potentially extending beyond the specific regulatory harms it is intended to mitigate," he cautioned.
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