News

WhatsApp Usernames Are Coming: Here’s How To Claim Yours

Meta says handles will keep phone numbers private. Regulators and fraud watchers are less sure the trade-off is that simple.

Published

3 months ago

July 6, 2026

Dana Saadeh

whatsapp usernames are coming here's how to claim yours

Meta

For more than a decade, using WhatsApp has meant handing out your phone number. But that’s about to change. Meta announced last week that the messaging platform will introduce usernames – handles that can stand in for a phone number, keeping personal contact details private.

The feature isn’t live yet, and a global rollout will unfold over the coming months. But reservations are already open, and the scramble has begun. Anyone hoping to carry the same handle across every platform will want to move quickly.

Reservations are currently limited to the mobile app. On iPhone, users will need to tap the You button, open their profile, and select “Create Username” or “Reserve Username,” depending on whether the rollout has reached them. On Android, the same options sit under the three-dot menu, in Settings, via your profile. There’s also a shortcut: users can claim their existing Facebook or Instagram handle, provided nobody has taken it first – though anyone chasing privacy may prefer a fresh name that isn’t linked to their other accounts.

The rules are similar to other online platforms. Usernames must be unique, between three and 35 characters, and composed of lowercase letters, numbers, underscores, and periods. All-number handles are banned, as are restricted words or phrases. If someone changes or deletes a claimed name, it returns to the pool after 14 days. Meta hasn’t said how many changes each user will be allowed, only that a limit is coming.

Also Read: Instagram Now Lets You Tune Its Algorithm, But There’s One Big Catch

The harder part of the puzzle is fraud. Meta plans an authorization key for first-time contact by username, but it hasn’t explained how it will police copycats impersonating public figures, which is a real concern when social media scams have already cost users billions of dollars.

Reuters reported that India’s government wants Meta to freeze the rollout until it justifies the feature and details how it will combat the elevated fraud risks. With more than 500 million users, India is WhatsApp’s largest market, and will be the first regulatory test of whether usernames launch everywhere at once.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

3 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.