Update: Hike has written a post saying that they've seen a 5x increase in the number of invites being sent out, and they've noticed that "some users have also started sending invites to people who they don’t know."..."starting today we’re going to take measures to curb such behaviour in hike. We’re also pro-actively keeping a track of those who are abusing our Free SMS Invites feature and blocking their usage. If you still face this problem wherein someone is sending you a lot of invites, just email us at support@hike.in and we’ll resolve it as soon as we can." We think that's a fair approach to take: allows invites (perhaps those should be limited, though), and addresses spam. However, there's still no update from Airtel on how they address spam. Earlier today: Over the last few days, we've noticed complaints about BSB-owned mobile applications company Hike apparently spamming users via SMS. We've received screenshots from readers who have received unsolicited messages asking them to sign up for Hike. What's particularly interesting is that these messages have invariably carried a message saying it's "better than Whatsapp", trying to position itself as a better product than what is likely to be the largest messaging app in India with over 30 million active users. One user, Rohin Dharmakumar, filed a complaint about these messages, and found that Airtel rejected them. While it's not unusual for companies to spam for promotion (Jabong, Myntra, Yebhi, for example), the Hike case is a particularly interesting one because the messages…
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