Gogolook founder and global Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jeff Kuo reaffirmed the company’s commitment to keeping the core features of its Whoscall anti-scam app free for Filipinos, calling scam protection a “human right.”
Kuo said the Philippines is one of Whoscall’s fastest-growing markets, citing the country’s young, highly connected population and its status as the “social media capital of the world.” He noted that scams in the country have evolved from simple text and call scam into multi-platform threats that exploit messaging apps, social networks, and even online marketplaces.
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“The Philippines is a very, I would say, vivid environment to understand how scammers can act across all the different media. How they create the social engineering stories to let people fall into a scam,” Kuo said
“So I would say that to be active in the Philippines is not only that we can help people, but we can use all the cases, all the studies, all the young people are facing, and all the high tech and high involvement scenarios into our knowledge base. And then use this one to serve the global potential victims. So, I would say this is the most important thing why we take the Philippines very seriously,” Kuo explained.
Asked if Whoscall will remain free in the Philippines, Kuo was unequivocal. “Yes, for the core features. All the basic functions will be free for a long time. We believe anti-scam is a human right. Once we have the knowledge about scammers, we must share the basic protections for free—especially in the Philippines,” he said.
Whoscall currently operates on a freemium model, with premium subscribers accessing advanced features. Globally, about three percent of users opt into paid subscriptions, which, Kuo said, sustains the business while keeping the essential protections available at no cost.
“Now, when anti-scam becomes a very serious global phenomenon, not only consumers need to take the responsibility by themselves, but also governments and enterprises. So, this is what we call the shared responsibility framework. It’s more like it has already been raised up to the ESG (environment, social, and governance) level. So many companies, they cannot only think about carbon, this kind of topic, but they need to think about how to proactively protect their consumers,” Kuo said.
For now, Kuo emphasized that Filipinos can rely on Whoscall as a free, accessible digital shield against scammers.
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