HIGHLIGHTS
- Google has added two new features to its Messages app on Android.
- Google’s spam detection features in being rolled out to users in the US.
- Google is rolling out its verified SMS feature to users in India.
Google has added two new features to its Messages app on Android that are aimed to weed out malicious SMSs and help users avoid those pesky and malicious messages that continue to fill up their message box. The two features that the company is rolling out to its Messages app are – verified SMS and spam detection.
Verified SMS
First let’s talk about the Verified SMS feature. This feature is aimed at helping people dodge phishing attacks wherein attackers send messages that look authetic in order to gain access to their private information. The Verified SMS feature for Message will confirm the “true identity of the business that’s texting you.”
So how will this change the way you see SMSs by various businesses? Google will verify every message that a business sends to a user on a per-message basis confirming that it is sent by a specific business. When a message has been successfully verified by the tech giant, they will see a verification badge – which looks like a blue shield – along with the business name and logo in the message thread.
1-800-Flowers, Banco Bradesco, Kayak, Payback, and SoFi are some of the companies that will send Verified SMS to their customers and Google says that Google Pay India and verification codes from Google will also be added to this feature soon.
As far as availability is concerned, this feature is being rolled out in nine countries, which includes, India, the US, Mexico, Brazil, the U.K., France, Philippines, Spain and Canada. The tech giant will roll out this feature in other countries soon.
Spam Detection
This feature will help users determine if a message that they have received is a spam message and if it can lead users to websites that aren’t safe to use. Google will show an exclamation mark on red background if it detects that a message isn’t safe. All users need to do is confirm if indeed a spam message or not. This in turn would help in fine tuning Google’s algorithms and help it detect spammy messages more efficientlty. This feature is being rolled out in the US.
