We understand that phone numbers are very personal and tied to our identities and giving them away on the internet makes us all a bit uncomfortable. But, there are good reasons to why we have chosen to use phone numbers instead of email addresses on FrontPage.

Here is a short list:

Discouraging spammers and trolls: FrontPage is comprised of various clubs (topic and interest based groups) where members can engage and voice their opinions. But, any such public forum can attract the attention of professional spammers or certain members who’d rather troll than engage meaningfully. Using phone numbers helps to control/blacklist/ban such actors much better.

Emails are too clunky: Consider the following: Emails are long and hard to type with @s and dots. This can lead to mistakes and confirmation emails may be sent to nowhere or someone else’s account who may mark it as spam. Emails need to be confirmed outside in some other client but not everyone (non-techies especially) have an email client set up on their device with that particular email.

In India, a significant number of people don’t have or use emails actively: A whole generation of people are coming online via messaging apps primarily for communication and email use is not nearly as popular as in the west.

We don’t spam with SMS: The only time you may get an SMS from FrontPage is for security reasons: OTP validation etc. Every other kind of interaction is via app notifications only and can be toggled at will.

We hope this article clarifies why we ask for phone numbers, if not allaying all the fears. In case of questions or suggestions,  please do get in touch with us at – [email protected]