WhatsApp to Set Up its Local Office In Hyderabad

WhatsApp is still facing regulatory issues in India for the spread of fake news and regarding the launch of WhatsApp Pay. However, the company has reportedly decided to cooperate with government's demand of setting up an office in India. WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels on his five-day visit to India has met up with with Telangana IT minister K T Rama Rao to talk about setting up WhatsApp's its first office in Hyderabad just like its parent company Facebook did in 2010. He also spoke about the efforts the company is taking to curb fake news on its platform.

Recently, the popular messaging platform with more than 200 Mn users in India has faced regulatory issues on two fronts.

1. WhatsApp is finding ways to deal with the circulation of fake content on its platform. For this, it has already launched a feature where in forwarded messages would be labeled so that the user can judge the authenticity of the message. However, the company has denied government's request of tracing the origin of a message citing privacy issues.
2. The company is pursuing the government to get approval to officially launch its payment service. Though the company has launched a different version of the payment service with several Indian banks, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has demanded that they provide more details about the payment system. Since its parent company Facebook is also rolling out a payment feature for Messenger, the government is worried that user's data would be shared by both companies.

Allegedly, the company feels that it has been subjected to unfair treatment by the government even after it follows the same regulations as other tech companies like Google. Nevertheless, if WhatsApp decides to set up its consumer operations in Hyderabad, it could get on the good side of the government.

Read more at inc42.com