With growing concerns and discussion on the recent privacy policy changes in WhatsApp, Chennai based firm, Zoho Corporation is developing a messaging app called Arattai.
Arattai in Tamil literally means chit-chat and Zoho Corporation which is a multinational technology company specialized in software development headquartered in Chennai will be releasing the new chat app for users in the coming weeks.
On Sunday, company’s founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sridhar Vembu had tweeted, “Our Arattai team asked me to not talk about our instant messaging app yet but since it is already being talked about, I guess I can talk too. This is a friends-and-family trial release. We will do a formal launch in a few weeks. We have a lot more in store. Stay tuned!
Our Arattai team asked me to not talk about our instant messaging app yet but since it is already being talked about 😂, I guess I can talk too.
— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) January 10, 2021
This is a friends-and-family trial release. We will do a formal launch in a few weeks. We have a lot more in store. Stay tuned!
Vembu said he was compelled to tweet about the new app Arattai after it received a lot of attention in social media.
“As a company, we value our users’ privacy and do not share any data with third parties and do not have an ad-revenue model too. The data will also be stored in India as a homegrown company,” Zoho’s Vice President of marketing Praval Singh told The Times of India.
As per Arattai’s privacy policy, the app collects data including profile name, phone number, country code, address, profile picture (optional) and contacts (optional), and data is not shared or disclosed without the user’s prior specific consent.
In India, many users are upset with some of the unilateral decisions taken by major social media companies like Twitter and Facebook and have welcomed the move, as another achievement under ‘Made In India’ alternative to messaging app Whatsapp.
After Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump many in India are of the strong opinion that the time has come for India to come up with indigenous alternatives to Twitter and Facebook to decrease the risk of control by foreign-based big tech corporations.