A viral exchange on X (formerly Twitter) has ignited a fresh debate over data privacy in Zoho’s messaging app, Arattai, as founder Sridhar Vembu urged users to have faith in the company’s “trust model” rather than waiting for full technical safeguards like End-to-End (E2E) encryption.
The controversy erupted when a tech-savvy commentator @tamilravi directly challenged Vembu on the app’s handling of sensitive personal communications. Replying to Vembu’s earlier post that discussed three privacy scenarios — “secret lovers,” ad-targeted data misuse, and “secret rebels” plotting against governments — Ravi posed a straightforward question, to which Vembu’s response received a lot of flak, with some crediting Arattai’s popularity to nationalistic branding.
Can people share intimate content on Arattai safely?
Ravi’s query to Vembu read, “Forget secret lovers. Can a husband and wife exchange intimate pictures between them? Who all at Zoho have access to these pictures? Straight forward answer please.”
Soon after, Vembu’s response came with a reassuring yet philosophical tone. “I said this clearly,” he wrote. “Our entire SaaS business is based on the trust that we DO NOT access customer data and we do not use it for selling stuff to them. End-to-end encryption is a technical feature and that is coming. Trust is far more precious and we are earning that trust daily in the global market. We will continue to fulfill that trust of every user of our product everywhere,” wrote Vembu.
The post quickly amassed attention, with many amplifying privacy fears. Ravi followed up hours later with a screenshot of the interaction, summarising Vembu’s reply as a casual “Trust me, bro!” quip.
In a statement that drew sharp criticism for downplaying user concerns about end-to-end encryption (E2EE), Ravi wrote, “Arattai wasn’t released yesterday. It was released four years ago. Why doesn’t it still have end-to-end encryption?”
Replies poured in, with users accusing Zoho of prioritising nationalistic branding over robust security. One commenter noted, “Even if they implement E2EE, I won’t trust these guys, especially when they are backed by scandalous people.”
On the other hand, there were people who defended Vembu, pointing out that WhatsApp only rolled out E2EE in 2016, years after its launch, which is why it should be natural to give Arattai some time. Some praised Arattai’s ad-free, data-sovereign ethos as compared to Meta’s WhatsApp.
Is Arattai getting end-to-end encryption for text messages?
In subsequent clarifications, Sridhar Vembu elaborated that while Arattai ensures privacy for personal matters like “secret lovers” (including legitimate couples), it cannot shield users from legal obligations, such as government summons for “rebel” activities.
“Rebels can talk like secret lovers on Arattai, but can’t be safe from courts,” he wrote, clarifying that unlike WhatsApp and other rivals, Arattai will have compliance with national laws despite having end-to-end encryption.
While Vembu didn’t clarify how Zoho plans to make space for government summons for “rebel activities” while keeping an E2E encryption, he confirmed that the encryption technology rollout is imminent. Arattai will disable cloud storage for chats to bolster security for texting.
Will Arattai be safe to use with E2E encryption?
This social media spat and several other debates related to Arattai’s encryption safeguards highlight broader tensions in India’s tech ecosystem, where indigenous apps face scrutiny for balancing innovation with user rights. Arattai was launched in 2021 amid WhatsApp’s privacy policy uproar that drove millions to alternatives like Signal. The Zoho-developed app positions itself as a Tamil Nadu-rooted rival to global giants. Although Arattai boasts of its ad-free business model and data localisation for an 18-million-user base, critics argue that the lack of E2E encryption undermines claims of superiority,