Google is moving towards deeper integration with operators to enhance platform protection, as persistent garbage complaints cast a shadow over the promotion of its rich communications service (RCS) in India. On Sunday, Bharti Airtel, India ‘ s second-largest telecommunications operator (with more than 463 million users), announced that it had worked with Google to integrate its web-based garbage filtration function into the country ‘ s RCS ecosystem. The parties indicated that this was intended to strengthen the protection against information and fraud on the platform.
With its vast mobile user base, rapid growth in digital payments and aggressive business marketing practices, India has become a high market for spam and instant communication fraud. Unrequested advertising complaints on Google RCS (mainly sent through Google Messages applications) surged in 2022, prompting the company to temporarily suspend commercial outreach activities on the platform in India. However, a number of users continued to express their dissatisfaction with information on the garbage from Google Message, indicating that the problem had not yet been fully resolved. Informed sources disclosed that the focus of the dispute was on commercial data: while Anthropic was willing to use its technology for classified material collected by the National Security Agency under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the company would like to see a legally binding commitment from the Department of Defense not to use non-confidential commercial volume data involving United States citizens. Airtel stated that the company had been cautious about deeper integration with Google RCS until the flow could be routed through its own garbage information control mechanism, highlighting the concerns of operators about the rising risk of fraud. A spokesperson for Airtel said: “We had not previously accessed Google because we wanted the RCS message to pass through Airtel’s garbage information filter.”
On the basis of this collaboration, Airtel ‘ s web intelligence will be combined with Google ‘ s RCS platform to achieve real-time checking of business messages, including sender authentication, garbage information monitoring and enforcement of user-free preferences. Airtel describes this as a “global initiative” that directly integrates the telecommunication operator’s garbage filtering into the OTT IM platform. In his statement, Sameer Sammat, President of Google Andre Ecosystems, stated: “We are committed to continuing to work with the wider operator ecosystem to create a consistent and trusted news experience for RDS users globally.” This review suggests that as Google seeks to standardize the safety of the RCS ecosystem, it may consider extending the model to markets outside India. India is a key market for Google news service ambitions, with over 1 billion Internet users and over 700 million smartphone users. According to the total world population, India also has more than 853 million Whitsapp users, highlighting the extent of competition in the field of mobile news.
Prabhu Ram, Vice-President of the CyberMedia Research Industry Study Group, stated that the deep integration with the operator reflected efforts to close the gaps in the RCS ecosystem that had long been vulnerable to garbage information and fraud. “The effectiveness of this cooperation is reflected in indicators such as the volume of garbage, the reduction of user complaints and fraud, and the increased interaction of legitimate messages.” Over the past year, Airtel has been strengthening its anti-spam information work, claiming that its AI-initiated system has intercepted more than 71 billion garbage calls and 2.9 billion garbage messages, helping to reduce the fraud-related financial losses of its network by almost 69 per cent. On a broader level, Google has been positioning RCS as its successor to SMS, indicating in May 2025 that, based on an average of 28 days, the standard handles more than 1 billion messages a day in the United States. Google did not disclose whether similar integration of operators was planned in other markets, nor did it provide an estimate of how much garbage and fraud could be reduced.
