You currently need a phone number to sign up for Telegram. Add an option to sign up using an email address or another method, like some messengers do (e.g., Wire, Matrix, Threema, Session).
Potential spam issues could be mitigated by:
Only allowing addresses from major email providers at first and slowly expanding reach if it's manageable.
Automatically limiting such accounts from contacting strangers until their perform some additional actions.
Allowing group admins to prevent such accounts from posting by default.
Use Cases
Avoiding an identifier tied to your identity, hiding identity from governments or people who know your number.
Workaround
Use a virtual phone number.
Warning: Do NOT use temporary numbers to connect to your account, as you may lose access to your account when you lose access to the number.
To reduce the risk of spammers, Telegram could make the new user pass a captcha test, and then require they pay $10 (non-refundable). Payment could be done via cryptocurrency or Visa/MC (which could be an anonymous prepaid card they bought for cash at a convenience store).
Spammers can easily register and flood channels, groups, etc. Making distributions for other contacts. Also registering with email address is possible with temp mails, so there is no guarantee of identification.
Which kind of control do you mean? Telegram messaging is encrypted fully. What does mobile operators can do? Like other massaging app icluding WhatsApp, it is regular to use phone number for sign up.
Mobile operators can transfer authorization codes and personal data of the owners of the mobile number for which the telegram account is registered to the special services carrying out attacks on telegrams.
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