Govt grants Meta three more days to explain WhatsApp username rollout

The government has granted Meta until July 9 to respond to its notice on its WhatsApp’s proposed usernames feature. The extension, from the originally planned July 6 deadline, came after a Meta delegation met officials from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and asked for more time to reply, according to official sources.

Officials at MeitY said that the decision was also influenced by the fact that the ministry has issued simialr notices to Telegram and Signal. It wants to keep its engagement with all three platforms on a comparable timeline rather than conclude WhatsApp’s case ahead of the others.