If you are one of the Google Messages users in India, you will encounter a large number of advertisements in a day, then this is not an isolated case. According to reports, the Android default messaging app among Indian users is still receiving multiple advertisements despite activating the spam protection feature.
A user on Reddit further claimed that blocking and reporting ads does not block ads from new senders every day. “But remember, this is not an ad served by Google,” the user added. “It’s a company that provides advertising, basically spamming.”
According to users who complained about the ads, most of the content they received was related to insurance, loans and gambling. Unfortunately, none of these ads are based on the user’s activity, past purchases or preferences. In this regard, 9to5Google said that the Rich Communication Services (RCS) feature is being exploited, which is a protocol between mobile operators and mobile phones that allows businesses to send different media to users.
Ideally, businesses should use RCS in a practical way by providing users with media cards, product menus, QR codes, etc. Google details how it envisions the functionality of the messaging app:
“Millions of businesses rely on text messaging to communicate with mobile consumers. Credit card fraud alerts, flight status updates, and package delivery notifications are common examples of business-to-consumer SMS.
RCS (Rich Communication Services) upgrades SMS with branding, rich media, interactivity and analytics. With RCS, businesses can bring a branded, interactive mobile experience to the default messaging app. ”
To make matters worse, some of the ads came from “verified business” accounts, as Indian Twitter user Ishan Agarwal put it. However, as Google has remained silent on the issue, the reason it was allowed remains unknown. Interestingly, Android Police reports that this issue has been around for almost a year. In addition, there are reports that receiving spam is not limited to Pixel or Android One users, it has also extended to Samsung phones.
Android Police also recommends disabling RCS to permanently prevent any other businesses from sending ads to users in the future. (It can be accessed from the chat feature in device settings.) If the problem persists, it could also drive more Indian users to opt for other SMS apps that don’t have RCS functionality. This will be a problem for Google as it plans to replace SMS and MMS messages with RCS in the future.