The European Union could force Apple to open up iMessage to allow users of other messaging apps to send texts, media and make calls across platforms.
Agreement was reached in the European Parliament late Thursday night on the new Digital Markets Act (DMA), which aims to curb the power of the biggest tech companies to monopolize services.
As part of the crackdown on perceived anti-competitive behavior, the EU wants all major messaging platforms to become interoperable. That means you can send messages from iMessage to a WhatsApp user, or video call an iMessage user with a Signal user, or vice versa.
The idea is to give users more choices without restricting what apps they can use. So if you’ve been wanting to quit your iPhone but worried about leaving iMessage behind, this might help.
Or if you’ve been thinking about ditching all Facebook-owned messaging apps for good to rely on Signal, but are concerned that many of your friends aren’t there, then this might help.
“The Digital Markets Act ends the increasing dominance of big tech companies. From now on they have to show that they also allow fair competition on the Internet. The new rules will help enforce this fundamental principle. As a result, Europe ensures more competition, more innovation and more choice for users,” said Andreas Schwab of the European Parliament in a statement (via TechCrunch).
Trustworthy recording
What politicians, in their infinite wisdom, have decided can be a real minefield in terms of implementation. For example, there would be all sorts of formatting issues to deal with. Google is just figuring out how to handle iMessage “reactions” after years of displaying them as text strings. As you can imagine, if every messaging app became interoperable, this problem would be compounded tenfold.
Politicians also don’t seem to have thought about the implications of where those messages go. For example, iMessage users may not want to send and receive messages on Messenger. Where does this data go? Whose is this? Does Meta have access to it? There are more questions than answers right now, and the solution is potentially more problematic than the cure.
Personally, I’m as pro-European as they come, but the EU can leave my beloved iMessage exactly as it is, thank you very much.
