Google has been looking to tackle RCS spam for a long time in India – but not alone

As persistent spam complaints have cast a shadow over Google’s Rich Communications Services (RCS) efforts in India, the company is turning to deeper integration with telcos to strengthen protections on the platform.

Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator with over 463 million subscribers, said on Sunday that it has partnered with Google to integrate the telco’s network-level spam filtering into the country’s RCS ecosystem. The companies said that this step aims to strengthen protection against spam and fraud on the platform.

India has emerged as a particularly challenging market for spam and fraud across messaging channels, driven by the country’s vast mobile user base, rapid growth in digital payments, and strong enterprise marketing practices. In 2022, complaints about unwanted ads on Google’s RCS service — served primarily through the Google Messages app — were significant enough to prompt the company to temporarily halt business promotions on the platform in India. However, some users continue to report frustration with spam on Google Messages, suggesting that the problem has not completely subsided.

Airtel said it was cautious about aligning deeper with Google’s RCS service so traffic can be routed through its spam controls, highlighting carriers’ concerns about heightened fraud risks.

“We did not join Google because we first wanted RCS messages to be routed through Airtel’s spam filter,” an Airtel spokesperson said.

Under this partnership, Airtel’s network intelligence will be integrated with Google’s RCS platform to enable real-time checks on business messages, including sender verification, spam detection, and enforcement of Do Not Disturb preferences for users. Airtel described the move as a “world-first” to integrate the telecom operator’s spam filtering directly into a high-level messaging platform, though the companies did not provide comparative details.

“We are committed to continuing to work with the broader carrier ecosystem to create a consistent and reliable messaging experience for RCS users around the world,” Sameer Samat, head of Android ecosystem at Google, said in a statement. The commentary suggests that the company may look to expand the model beyond India as it works to standardize security across the RCS ecosystem.

India represents an important market for Google’s messaging ambitions, with more than 1 billion internet users and more than 700 million smartphone users. The country is also home to more than 853 million WhatsApp users, according to the World Population Review, underscoring the scale of competition in mobile messaging.

The deeper integration between telcos reflects efforts to plug legacy vulnerabilities in rich messaging systems that were vulnerable to spam and fraud, said Prabhu Ram, vice president of the industry research group at CyberMedia Research.

“The effectiveness of this partnership should be reflected in metrics such as reductions in spam volume, user complaints, and fraud incidence, as well as improvements in handling legitimate messages,” Ram told TechCrunch.

Airtel has stepped up its anti-spam efforts over the past year, saying its AI-driven systems have blocked more than 71 billion spam calls and 2.9 billion spam messages, helping drive a nearly 69% reduction in fraud-related financial losses on its network.

More broadly, Google has positioned RCS as a successor to SMS, saying in May 2025 that the standard was handling more than 1 billion messages per day in the United States, based on a 28-day average.

Google did not say whether similar integrations are planned with carriers in other markets or provide estimates of how much the move would reduce spam and fraud.