India, July 10 -- Would you prefer a username instead of an overt phone-number flashing on your chat-app?

It's a question that has gone beyond user-thumbs to the wrestling mats of technology companies and regulatory bodies. It's a choice that is no longer about personal privacy-meters but about bigger implications of security, regulation and cyber-safety.

India, WhatsApp's biggest market, with about 800 million (as per different estimates) users (in a global base of over three billion users) is making Meta pause and, possibly, pivot on many innovations- specially when user convenience has to align well with security and safety- both at the individual and the bigger-than-that levels. When WhatsApp unboxed plans for features that let What...