According to a survey conducted among WhatsApp users in India, a whopping 95% of them say they receive one or more annoying messages daily, and 41% of those say they receive four or more.
Based on their interactions with WhatsApp business accounts, as well as their activity on Facebook and Instagram, almost 76% of respondents claimed to get such unsolicited messages on WhatsApp.
According to a research by the online community platform LocalCircles, WhatsApp users in India said the most annoying messages came from people providing financial services, real estate, employment and income possibilities, healthcare, and pathology services.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) started looking into whether WhatsApp could compromise quality in terms of the security of personal data in 2021.
WhatsApp users in India have been raising issues about unsolicited commercial communication on the platform for years.
The latest data shows that only five percent of those surveyed are spared this harassment, but 54 percent get up to three spam or promotional messages every day.
Experts assume that many WhatsApp users in India do not avail the options of blocking, muting or archiving users and chats or lack awareness.
“In some cases, spammers create groups of users and send pesky messages to them as it enables them to send such messages to a larger number of WhatsApp users at one go,” said the report.
With the new WhatsApp privacy policy, the users expected to see relevant advertising based on business chats on Facebook/Instagram but not exactly on WhatsApp and that too in the form of pesky messages.
“This is something that WhatsApp must investigate and if this is a result of organised advertising or partnership with brands, the users must be informed,” said the report.