Whatsapp has begun working on support for third party chats (Telegram/Signal)
Whatsapp has begun working on support for third party chats (Telegram/Signal)
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.
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Does this legalize Matrix Bridges?
@CaptainAniki @iturnedintoanewt It obsoletes Matrix.
Matrix is working to be the protocol that all messengers will be mage to talk
Unless if Facebook continue being Facebook and start developing their own incompatible "standard".
The DMA makes it so they can't it they are classed as a gatekeeper
@ninchuka So a corporate re-invention of the already standardized XMPP?
There is the nonprofit matrix foundation who owns and controls the spec, currently most of the work done is done by element/new vector since the founders of matrix founded it to fund development of matrix
Good to mention is that Matrix just got a director that is independent from Element.
I forgot about that, cheers for reminding me
It depends... knowing FacebookMeta would be like an other time that their are embrace extend extinguish, so not hoping so... I want to migrate soon to beeper or other matrix paid services, pretty cool instead
No it doesn't.
@CaptainAniki WhatsApp is unlikely to adopt Matrix, a very expensive protocol that does not scale well and which fundamental ideas blow up pretty badly: https://telegra.ph/why-not-matrix-08-07
Whatever chat protocol they decide to implement will instantly have a 2B user boost. They use the IETF Internet Standard XMPP internally, so this would be the obvious choice.
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@CaptainAniki It doesn't matter if you give a shit or not, Matrix will become obsolete if the big providers decide to adopt something else for interoperability.
You haven't the foggiest idea of what you're talking about.