Google is going to use its advanced tech to alert users about spam calls on their phone screen.
Spam calls can be annoying, especially when you are expecting an important and you hear an automated caller selling products to you. Google realises the menace that has plagued the industry and now wants to help callers in its own way.
The search giant is adding a suspected caller alert feature on Google Voice which as the name suggests will warn users that they are getting a spam call. “The label will help protect users from unwanted calls and potentially harmful scams,” Google said in a blog post. The alert will be shown on the call screen as well as the call history.
Telcos have been ordered to limit the reach of spam callers in India but their efforts have failed to deliver the results. The government has also intervened to fix the issue but it seems the only way to stop these practices is to have technology do the leg work. Google’s feature means that users have the power to alert the system about any spam calls, which means that calls will be directed to a voicemail in the future.
People can also delist the caller as spam, which will bring the contact back to the main folder in the call history. Google is not limiting access to these features with an admin, giving every Google Voice user the power to label spam calls.
The company has not mentioned that you need to be on a particular Android version to get this support, so we assume the spam caller tool will be available for all recent Android phones.
Google bringing the spam caller alert is one such option, while you have other third-party apps like Truecaller doing god’s work, even though it only works effectively on Android, while iOS users get the lighter version because of Apple restricting third-party access.