Telegram offers a free premium subscription. It want to exploit user’s phone number instead

Telegram offers a way to get a premium subscription for free. To do this, you need to voluntarily provide a phone number to transfer one-time passwords (OTPs) to other users. This method involves participating in a Peer-to-Peer Login (P2PL) program that allows you to use your phone number to send OTP messages up to 150 times per month. For each use of the OTP transfer number, the user receives a promo code for a monthly premium subscription.

However, this raises privacy concerns because the recipient can see the sender’s number. When the number is used to send the OTP, it is visible to the recipient. Telegram claims that the program is designed to improve receiving access codes in regions where SMS is not always delivered reliably. And this may also be an attempt to avoid the commission for sending SMS codes by the company itself, which has already practiced X (Twitter) of Elon Musk.