Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu Responds to Questions About Arattai’s Chat Privacy

Currently, Zoho is being discussed everywhere in the social media world. The company has created an app called Arattai that can compete with WhatsApp. As per the claims, this app can replace WhatsApp. Some Indian government ministers also posted about this app on X, which has increased public curiosity. Now, a conversation between a user and Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu on the social media platform X has raised questions about the app's privacy.

Indeed, a user, @tamilravi, directly asked him whether it is safe to share private conversations and photos, such as those between husband and wife, on Arattai. Ravi questioned the app's unencrypted service, asking, "Who can access Zoho's photos? Please provide a clear answer."

Sridhar Vembu responded, "Our entire software-as-a-service (SaaS) business is based on trust. We neither see nor sell any user data. End-to-end encryption is a technical feature that will be added soon. But trust is much more valuable."

While Vembu's response seemed satisfactory to some, many users began trolling him, criticizing the app's weak encryption. Ravi later shared a screenshot of the conversation, writing, "Arattai was launched four years ago, why is there still no end-to-end encryption?"

Vembu's response divided users on social media. Many accused Zoho of focusing more on "nationality"-based branding than security. One user wrote, "Even if they add end-to-end encryption, trust will no longer be there."

On the other hand, some supported Vembu, saying that WhatsApp also added E2E encryption much later than its launch. Therefore, Arattai should be given some time.

The Arattai app currently lacks end-to-end encryption for text messages; it is only available for video and voice messages. Meanwhile, its biggest competitor, WhatsApp, offers this feature for all types of messages. The lack of end-to-end encryption in the Arattai app is proving to be a major drawback.

End-to-end encryption is a safety feature that ensures chats between two users remain secure from one device to another. This means that no one can intercept what the app users are talking about. Encrypted messages are also protected from hacking on the company's servers and can only be decrypted for security reasons. If messages don't have encryption, they are decrypted during indexing on the server. This process can compromise the privacy of messages.

In response to criticism on social media regarding this issue, Arattai issued a statement from the official X (Twitter) account, stating that user privacy is of utmost importance to the company. End-to-end encryption for chats is a priority, and his team is actively working on it.