Arattai drops username accounts after India blocks WhatsApp feature

The Indian government, via the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, issued a notice to Meta demanding a halt to the rollout of a username‑based account feature on WhatsApp, citing concerns about cyber fraud, impersonation and phishing. Within days, Zoho co‑founder Sridhar Vembu announced on X that the Indian messaging app Arattai will disable its own username‑based account feature to comply with the regulatory change. Vembu’s post read, “We will be disabling the user name based account feature in Arattai, to comply with the regulatory change. Thank you.”

Arattai’s decision makes it one of the first Indian messaging platforms to publicly respond to the new regulations. The company has not provided a specific timeline for the removal, but the move signals adherence to the government’s directive amid broader scrutiny of similar features on services such as Telegram and Signal.