The European Union gave more details on the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a set of laws which, if passed, will result in different messaging apps are interoperable. iMessage, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and others will need to be able to message each other.
Interoperability that leaves us with more questions than answers
DMA is considered for enterprises with at least 45 million monthly active users or 10,000 annual active business users in Europe. So many messaging apps and platforms will be seen under this new regulation. A settlement, remember, still awaiting completion of its preparation and approval
As reported on TechCrunch, the goal of European lawmakers is that no matter what app or messaging service we choose, we can communicate with users of other services. A proposal that would change the messaging landscape more than substantially.
A proposal that would also require more than considerable engineering work to be able to move messages between the different services. Services, remember, that don’t always offer the same level of security or privacyfor example in the form of the type of encryption used, so that we as users should be able to easily know where and how our messages arrive.
A possible implementation of this law could lead platforms to adopt, in addition to their proprietary systems, a common alternative for passing messages between them. I am thinking here of RCS support, a sort of evolution of SMS, which Google is already implementing in certain services.
Overall, we’ll have to wait and see what form this law eventually takes, what the exact requirements are, and, if approved, how it’s technically implemented across platforms. Processes which, given the magnitude of the changes, can take a long time.
More information | European Parliament
Picture | Also AY
