The European Union has recently reached an agreement on a significant competition reform known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which will impose strict rules on large tech companies that will have to offer users the ability to communicate with each other using different apps. WhatsApp is one of the companies that will be required to comply with the new regulations outlined in the European Union’s Digital Markets Act. This is because WhatsApp is considered a gatekeeper service since it’s a large tech platform with a substantial user base and falls within the criteria set by the DMA. With the latest WhatsApp beta for Android 2.23.19.8 update, which is available on the Google Play Store, we discovered that WhatsApp is working on complying with the new regulations:
As you can see in this screenshot, WhatsApp is working on a new section dedicated to the new regulations. Since it is still in development, this section is still not ready, it appears empty and it’s not accessible to users, but its title confirms to us that they are now working on it. WhatsApp has a 6-month period to align the app with the new European regulations to provide its interoperability service in the European Union. At the moment, it remains unclear whether this feature will also eventually extend to countries beyond the European Union.
Interoperability will allow other people to contact users on WhatsApp even if they don’t have a WhatsApp account. For example, someone from the Signal app could send a message to a WhatsApp user, even without a WhatsApp account. While this broader network can definitely enhance communication with those people who use different messaging apps and assist those small apps in competing within the messaging app industry, we acknowledge that this approach may also raise important considerations about end-to-end encryption when receiving a message from users who don’t use WhatsApp. In this context, as this feature is still in its early stages of development, detailed technical information about this process on WhatsApp as a gatekeeper is currently very limited, but we can confirm that end-to-end encryption will have to be preserved in interoperable messaging systems. In addition, as mentioned in Article 7 of the regulations, it appears that users may have the option to opt out when it will be available in the future.
Third-party chat support is under development and it will be available in a future update of the app. As always, we will share a new article when we have further information regarding this feature.
Nice try, Mark.
I’m not sharing my pr0n with you.
Nice try, Mark.
I’m not sharing my dark web hacking guides by socialist cute femboys with cat ear headphones on RGB puke standing desk at the rhythm of some sick synthwave mixes.
if it is related to your job or to reach your clients. do you still want to refuse?
Then that’s something done on a work device with a work account and not a personal one. I don’t care what is on a work device, since it shouldn’t be used for personal things.
It’s still a win if the move causes widespread adoption by the average consumer. The more privacy conscious can just use a different client.
It’s not a win in my book. If Whatsapp can send messenges to me on my signal app, I’ll need a feature in signal to block incoming messages from Whatsapp clients. Otherwise, Meta would still have access to the whole conversation without my permission and that’s a big problem.
This is a pointless way to think about it, as long as signal can block conversations, or as long as you can just not respond, noone can gather your data. Only if you reply they might get some of your data, the message that you sent fully knowing that the one you were sending it to could leak it just as well as Facebook. So what does it matter if they can send you messages.
You still, presumably, use HTTP for your internet needs, even though facebook totally works over it.
What’s the problem with a protocol for chat?
They certainly do. They undermine HTTP too. And would have done much more harm if the Web was not founded with a different governance model.
EU actions like that in the title post stress this original, less centralized, model. It was naive to assume that free internet will remain free if left alone.
Paradoxically, preserving freedom relies on constraints and regulations.
People who use Telegram and Signal wants to avoid Facebook at all cost and Zuck comes up with shit.
Like a lot of the comments here, I misunderstood it from the headline
The European Union has recently reached an agreement on a significant competition reform known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which will impose strict rules on large tech companies that will have to offer users the ability to communicate with each other using different apps.
I didn’t know this was a thing, what other apps/platforms are affected by this?
Interoperability will allow other people to contact users on WhatsApp even if they don’t have a WhatsApp account. For example, someone from the Signal app could send a message to a WhatsApp user, even without a WhatsApp account.
So it’s about being able to message someone from Signal to Whatsapp. That might be a good thing for Signal/Telegram users, since you always have the option to NOT message someone from those platforms.
What I’m curious about is what data Facebook can collect from a Signal user. I assume Signal will take steps to block third party data harvesting, assuming this even goes through. There’s a similar issue with Threads and other for profit companies joining the fediverse. At least with Signal there isn’t that much data to begin with. I think Fediverse platforms also need some more safeguards on the privacy/security side.
What I’m curious about is what data Facebook can collect from a Signal user.
Exactly my thought. How will participants be id’ed? Facebook won’t jump through hoops to prevent collecting phone numbers for this.
Registering by phone number has been a major discussion point towards Signal too and I personally only tolerate that because I trust them enough to only store them hashed. I don’t trust Meta.
and they want to join the Fediverse too, they are acting like the guy that wants to fit in by force. It all smells like some monopoly shenanigans
This is not really a good take given that the one that has most features, Telegram, will from now on be able to chat directly with whatsapp family memebers. People that used whatsapp will keep using it, some might switch, and people that didn’t want to use it will uninstall it. Y’all are being very silly, this is something the EU is pushing Whatsapp to do, not something that has been proposed by Meta.
yeah, there was totally no lobbying involved and the eu wants this for the greater good and innocent convenience of the european citizens. (btw, standard telegram messages aren’t encrypted in the first place)
Yes I know Facebook doesn’t want to have to integrate with other messenger apps for WhatsApp. I was referring to their push to get Threads on the Fediverse. This is something they are pushing for internally and not something they are obligated to do.
I think in both cases, Facebook will make functionality work but will let things be wonky if you’re not using the WhatsApp/Messenger/Threads app. That will put pressure on people to abandon using Signal or Mastodon to communicate and not experience issues.
