Kellen
Protection is coming to your text message experience on Android, thanks to a couple of new features rolling out to Google’s Messages app on Android. Going forward, you’ll get verified messages from businesses, when you ask for account help, plus Google is going to flag messages as spam if they suspect any foul play.
For spam detection, Google is rolling out real-time detection with warnings if a message hits your device from “suspected spam and unsafe websites.” The warning (top left) also lets you report back to Google if the message really is spam or not to help their models get smarter.
As for the verified SMS or text messaging part of today’s announcement, Google is going to attempt to verify businesses as they send you messages. For example, if you need to reset your account password or get a code for 2-factor authentication, those messages (top right) will contain information about the authenticity of the sender. If verified, Google will show the name and logo of the business in addition to a verified badge.
To get verified, it sounds like businesses will have to sign-up, which Google says is happening “every day.”
Again, this is all happening within the Google Messages app, which now has RCS support too. You may want to switch to it as your default text messaging app if you haven’t already done so.
Spam protection is broadly rolling out in the US, while verified SMS are in the gradual rollout stage in nine countries (US, India, Mexico, Brazil, the U.K., France, Philippines, Spain and Canada).
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