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.
Will they do this everywhere, or only in the European Union?
Everywhere.
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.
one of the main reasons i prefer threema over signal is that threema does not run on any of my personal data to get started.
Different apps being able to communicate sounds similar to the fediverse! Would be nice if there was a common protocol/library every messenger would use and clients would only need to implement it.
I agree with the other commenter that it sounds a bit like the Fediverse. It’s interesting to think about. I think part of what draws people to any messaging platform is continuity with the other services on the platform. The actual messaging experience can be duplicated or exceeded by anyone, like how RCS has made the humble text message more powerful and compatible than anyone at Apple could comprehend.
With this idea, would any messaging platform that became ultra successful be then required to allow other platforms to message their users? Which platforms are allowed? How is spam managed? What about special privacy features like what’s built in to Signal or Telegram? How do the platforms manage linking to content embedded in other parts of the platform (think Instagram posts/reels/messenger).
There are a lot of difficult issues to work out.
Awaken from thy slumber XMPP! Bring us new and better implementations and standards, and the network effect we once enjoyed now solidified by law.
That would be nice indeed.
Some sort of extensible message protocol?
Yes! And we’ll name it eXtensible Message Protocol Protocol 😁
Its literally required ( in some way ) in the EU. with the new DMA.
I heard that Signal said that they won’t interoperate with WhatsApp and such? Some blog was going on about that.
That’s too bad, but I’m not sure how they can enforce it since anyone can build their own version of the signal client, nothing stopping WhatsApp from doing something like that.
Anyone can build an implementation of the Signal client, but few do already because Signal actively works to prevent them from working with the Signal infrastructure, and likely will continue to do so. It’s one of the more common complaints about Signal, but it was built on the assumption that centralized services would be easier to use and to make private if the platform holder wanted, as well as more robust against attacks. They could well be wrong, and people just haven’t thought of and deployed the right tech, but it’s neither here nor there; I’m doubtful they can be convinced on this, and I’d doubt they’d be made to open up anyway by this regulation, meaning they’re not obligated to.
Yeah but will WhatsApp allow a individual’s custom Signal build to interoperate with WhatsApp?
I was more meaning that WhatsApp could include a custom signal build inside WhatsApp.
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it represents decentralization and digital democracy. No more concerns about privacy breaches, identity exposures, or data leaks
It doesn’t, and it does absolutely nothing to address those issues.
E2EE is mainly a client-side matter, makes no difference how “centralized” or not the server part it.
I wouldn’t trust Meta for E2EE for anything.
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.
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.
That will put pressure on people to abandon using Signal or Mastodon to communicate and not experience issues.
I won’t talk about mastodon some this post is about instant messaging. This sentence would make sense if it weren’t that we already have WhatsApp.
This change would enable us to uninstall whatsapp and use a single app to talk with friends and family WhatsApp and he’s kinda extreme, alltbe other ones have it to communicate with “normies” anyway.
The top level comment was about Fediverse which is why I brought up Mastodon
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
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)
yeah, there was totally no lobbying involved and the eu wants this for the greater good and innocent convenience of the european citizens.
Dunno, but I don’t see much benefit for whatsapp when, as stated, is the most used messaging app in europe, and all of us that dislike it are forced to use it because we don’t live in a bubble.
(btw, standard telegram messages aren’t encrypted in the first place)
They are. They are encrypted client to server and they are stored encrypted in the server. Yeah it’s not E2E but saying that they are not encrypted makes it look like it is like whatsapp was for about 3-4 years until they implemented e2e, actual non encrypted messages. I would prefer if it were possible to have e2e in telegram normally, without losing all the utilities like being able to use it without having the phone connected but right now it’s the only app that provides stuff that I use regularly.
If you have been following the improvements, whatsapp is lagging behind telegram in regard to stickers, message deletion, message editing, markdown bold/italized/monospace texts, idk if it even has spoiler blocks… yeah.
Also, for security there’s signal but then my friends use telegram and family uses whatsapp, it doesn’t have the utility features that telegram provides like voice calls to friends from the desktop…
Anyway, as stated I genuinely think that this is good for us non whatsapp users that need to interact with people that only use whatsapp and were forced to have it installed.
How about starting with the company who says you have to buy their phone to use their messenger. If Apple isn’t eventually considered a gatekeeper, then this is a joke.
iMessage isn’t as big in Europe as it is in the US. They just looked at it and declared it’s too small to be seen as a gatekeeper, in that market.
No, EU lunched 5 months investigation to decide whether iMessage is big enough.
^^ To add: It wasn’t EU that declared it too small. It was to be on the list until Apple disputed iMessage’s position as a gatekeeper, claiming it was too small. EU will now investigate. Same with Bing and Microsoft Edge.
iMessages automatically becomes a sms app with every other phone, so everyone with a phone capable of sending and reiciving text is able to contact you. No gatekeeping at all.
.The intention of the EU is clearly to have iMessage, the part that handles instant messaging over WiFi, be compatible with other such apps, like WhatsApp. I am not a lawyer, such a loophole may very well exist, but it is frankly foolish to believe EU will back down if WhatsApp for example adds SMS support and calls it a day. I expect the EU to see their intention through.
this whole thing is peak boomer bureaucracy. they just want a one stop shop for data collection and backdoors, not understanding the technology behind it. i don’t use whatsapp (even tho is makes me some kind of digital pariah in germanic europe) because i don’t want my data processed by meta. if my signal is now “forced” into being readable - and collectable - by whatsapp, my data end up with meta. the european union is doing big tech a favour by forcing smaller messengers to be “compatible” with major ones.
imessage/messages would even be worse because it’s not just the iphone’s default messenger, but also deeply integrated into ipados, watchos and macos, opening those platforms, too. if all of this would just be an initiative for more openess, the eu could just force them all to integrate the new sms standard google is begging apple to implement for quite some time.
look behind the curtain.
The problem you raise is real, but also avoidable. Nobody forces you to actually communicate via signal with people on WhatsApp. In fact, if you do have people on WhatsApp you want to talk to, you already have an account on WhatsApp and you can keep using that. However, some people might appreciate the possibility to have this bridged communication, especially because it allows for much easier migration to signal (and similar) from people who “everyone is on WhatsApp”. The more people move over, the more signal-to-signal communication can happen, etc.
Ultimately it is exactly like email. I think it’s still worth using proton, even though 80% of your emails will be coming from or going to a gmail account.
The crux is having the ability to:
- know when you are talking with a user on WhatsApp
- block or refuse to talk with a user on WhatsApp.
Once you can choose, hardcore privacy people can keep talking only between signal users, but the interoperability can help more people moving over in the meanwhile.
What makes you think this means Whatsapp will just get access to signals data? If it works by someone saying “sent specifically a Signal message to this number” then the issue is that person’s handling of your data. And even then, signal could just play dumb until you yourself specifically say “allow Whatsapp messages from this number explicitly”.
Edit: also, wouldn’t this make it verifiable that Whatsapp is actually using proper encryption?
People who use Telegram and Signal wants to avoid Facebook at all cost and Zuck comes up with shit.
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@CaptainAniki @iturnedintoanewt It obsoletes Matrix.
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@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.
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Matrix is working to be the protocol that all messengers will be mage to talk
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
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I forgot about that, cheers for reminding me
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The DMA makes it so they can’t it they are classed as a gatekeeper
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
Up to a month ago, people were irritated and would constantly complain about having to use “too many chat apps” to talk with people. The EU then demands messaging apps to be interoperable, now people are irritated and will constantly complain that they do not want to send messages to X service or participate in Y service group chats
It’s comical
they do not want to send messages to X service
I feel like most would understand it, Xitter has gone downhill.
Sorry I found it too funny that we cannot use the letter X as example in some situations as it could be confusing 😅.
Apparently the feature can be disabled…But how this is implemented will be the main point. We’ll see. I for one welcome this (forced) change. Maybe I can finally uninstall Whatsapp.
I hold my bets that it’s going to use the Matrix protocol and keep using Signal’s encryption, this is pretty much what;;s out there already.
About too many apps, I never got bother by it really, but recently I discovered Beeper, which is a fancy frontend for an ansible playbook with matrix bridges for many popular chat apps, and I really liked the convenience of having everything in one app. The playbook they use is FOSS, obviously, and you can self host it, which I did. I use the Element app and I have bridges for WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Discord, Instagram and Messenger. There are some flaws and quirks still, but in time they’ll be patched out.
If you’re into self hosting, I recommend checking out the playbook, or if you just want the work done for you, check out Beeper (and for the American folks, Beeper has SMS/RCS integration and can use iMessage on Android, Windows and Linux)
Any chance you have a Beeper invite to share? I’ve been on the wait-list awhile.
do Voice and video work for WhatsApp and Discord?
Nope, as of now it’s not possible to forward calls to the bridges, so you still need the apps for calls.
If they’re smart they’ll just do nothing to block spam via the new feature except offering a button in all new chats to turn the feature off (just like there currently is a report/block button).
Spammers will do the rest for them :(
And I’m not even worried about writing this here - I’m not giving them ideas, this one was obvious from the start.
i don’t want google or meta to have my data, that’s why i don’t use their messenger services and i don’t want some brussles boomers enable them to get access to it.
Try WireMin, I’ve been using it for a month, E2EE for dms, voice call, chat rooms, feed, pic or file transfers, P2P network. Its different with Signal/Telegram, which are run by a single company and could exit the UK if they have to. It is decentralized, it can’t be controlled or banned by anyone.
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This looks like an ad
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WireMin, as far as I can tell, is not open source. There’s no way to prove that any of their claims are actually true. Plenty of messaging apps have claimed to be “decentralized” and “end to end encrypted”, but those have been false claims a lot of the time.
I would suggest you look into Matrix and XMPP, which are actually decentralized protocols rather than a single closed source app. Since they’re open protocols, there’s actual proof of them being decentralized and end-to-end-encrypted.
Reading through the WireMin privacy policy and ToS, they are making several impossible claims, such as:
“No user information will be provided to us, not a single bit.”
As a somewhat tech-savy Matrix user, I can already tell you there’s literally no way for them to not receive user information, simply by having an app on the app or play store, user information gets sent to them for each download. Many functions in the app also cannot work without a publicly accessible server. Things like notifications, or even receiving any messages at all while the client device is behind NAT.
They even back down on their own statements in that same privacy policy:
“WireMin collects minimum device information, such as version number, platform, etc.”
And they clearly say a push notification token is obtained, which requires server infrastructure to use:
“Occasionally for WireMin App on mobile devices, an additional device notification token (e.g. iOS devices) may be collected, to enable push notifications. Again, that information is collected without exposing user identity or the device’s IP which eliminates the possibility of user tracking.”
While also claiming it is collected “without exposing user identity or the device’s IP”, which is impossible to do. (iirc) The IP protocol requires source and destination IP addresses to be known on both sides (even if I’m misremembering and it’s not the IP protocol, TCP still does).
Although I have not dug through the app, to figure out how it works internally, I can assure you it is not “decentralized”, and will go down or at the very least lack basic features as soon as their servers are shut off. Them lying about such a “large” aspect of their platform also makes me heavily question the “E2EE” claim.
Platforms such as Matrix or XMPP solve most of the issues I noted here by having decentralized servers, but ““centralized”” clients (clients only connect to one server). If any one server goes down, the clients under that server are affected, but the rest of the servers (and thus the rest of the network) is not affected.
I do not trust Whatsapp to provide the security of a signal conversation. Who wants signal and WhatsApp to talk to each other ?
It indeed is not a good thing, because Signal might not do shit with your data, but WhatsApp might. Your conversation is mirrored to the WhatsApp user afterall. Though It would be nice if it was an optional and “dangerous” option to enable in the advanced options section. Just like how WhatsApp will allow you to disable interoperability. Because I’d rather use Signal’s app over using WhatsApp if I am not going to succeed in getting others to join Signal at the very least.
Just… Don’t put stuff in the WhatsApp chat that you wouldn’t like shared… I don’t see how it’s bad, it’s not like all your convos are being mirrored and it’s something you never have to use if you choose not to, but it’d be nice to be able to talk to those people who will never migrate away that I’ve completely lost contact with outside of Facebook since leaving WhatsApp.
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Yeah I guess that would be an option. I can just send them sensitive stuff over email with encryption.
I saw your other reply, I think having the cross platform connection could help solve the issues where they just deleted it a few days later. Now you can convince them to switch because they can still communicate.
I doubt that. I remember seeing a Signal blog or Signal forum member say that Signal will not interoperate with WhatsApp due to its privacy risks.
If it is sensitive data I would not use email.
I am not planning to send sensitive stuff in plain text, but in an encrypted way.
People who use WhatsApp but have friends who want to use signal and vice versa.
Your average person really does not care about this stuff,they just want something easy and familiar. This is good for people who care enough to use signal but still want to actually chat to people.
I use Signal and refuse WhatsApp. However, my karate club uses Messenger to communicate, for example if you can’t show up one night.
My shihan asked if I could communicate with him over WhatsApp, which I declined. But I like the idea of being able to text him that I can’t show up, or if there are some changes needed to our website. Things which aren’t exactly sensitive.
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Me…if I am 100% aware the other end is using whatsapp. Then I know what’s what.
I would be surprised if Whatsapp tried to implement its own version of Telegram’s, Signal’s and every other messaging app’s protocol to “talk” to all of these other apps. I bet they will provide an API to interoperate with Whatsapp that these other clients may (or may not) choose to implement, in order to send their messages to Whatsapp users.
In that scenario it would up to Signal (if they implement this) to choose how to display to their users that they are sending a message to someone who’s using Whatsapp, or to create options for users who want to disable this completely.
For me it’s really good news, but I understand why some people would worry about encryption and the data transmitted to bad companies.
Still, I’m sure it’ll also be reglemented and as long as you can opt out, I’m fine with it.
@Dariusmiles2123 @iturnedintoanewt It’s opt-in simply because you can choose not to message anyone with a @whatsapp.com address
Very useful if implemented well
