If you don't want to spend $5 a month on Telegram's premium service, but still want the features offered, there is a new (albeit really bad) way to achieve that goal.

Telegram will offer free access to its premium subscription tier if you agree to allow Telegram to send a one-time password (OTP) to other Telegram users using your phone number. Telegram calls this service " Peer-to-Peer Login" and promises to use any number only up to 150 times to send a passcode to log in to a user's account.

But there is something worse: in addition to using the user's phone number to send the OTP, the recipient will see the sender's phone number, according to the company; Telegram is not liable for any subsequent harassment that may occur.

According to The Verge, which reported this policy earlier, "Therefore, for any inconvenience, harassment, or harm resulting from any unwanted, unauthorized, or illegal activity done by users who learn your phone number through P2PL, Telegram understands and agrees that it is not responsible," the company's terms of service states.

This suggests a decidedly dangerous prospect for those who sign up for Telegram's services.

This move is clearly strange for Telegram, which markets itself as a privacy-first platform. In fact, Telegram has gained users worldwide thanks to its end-to-end encryption, secret chat functionality, and use of self-destructing messages. Telegram is a place where people use their privacy to maintain it, not to have it violated.

It is unclear why Telegram decided to take this policy; according to The Verge, Telegram uses other users' phone numbers for users in regions where SMS is a better means of verifying login information than an Internet connection, It will be more reliable, he stated. However, wireless carriers can charge customers for sending access codes, and Telegram states in its terms and conditions that it is not responsible for such charges; Telegram may be passing on the cost of sending OTPs to users.

In any case, this could be a privacy breakdown of epic proportions for those who sign up for this program. For privacy, it may be worth paying $5/month to access premium-level features such as removing ads, increasing upload size, and increasing the number of channels.