Meta on Friday revealed an replace on the way it plans to adjust to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the European legislation that goals to advertise competitors in digital marketplaces, the place the legislation issues the corporate’s messaging apps, Messenger and WhatsApp.
As Meta notes in a weblog publish, the DMA requires that it present an choice in WhatsApp and Messenger to attach with interoperable third-party messaging providers and apps. Meta says it’s constructing notifications into WhatsApp and Messenger to tell customers about these third-party integrations and alert them when a newly appropriate third-party messaging app comes on-line.
The firm additionally says it’s introducing an onboarding circulation in WhatsApp and Messenger the place customers can be taught extra about third-party chats and swap them on. From the circulation, customers will be capable of arrange a delegated folder for third-party messages or, alternatively, go for a mixed inbox.
In 2025, Meta will roll out group performance for third-party chats, and, in 2027, it’ll launch voice and video calling in accordance with the DMA.
And at some unspecified level sooner or later, Meta will carry “wealthy messaging” options for third-party chats to WhatsApp and Messenger, like reactions, direct replies, typing indicators and browse receipts, the corporate says.
“We will maintain collaborating with third-party messaging providers with a purpose to present the most secure and finest expertise,” Meta wrote within the publish. “Users will begin to see the third-party chat choice when a third-party messaging service has constructed, examined and launched the required expertise to make the characteristic a optimistic and safe person expertise.”
The upcoming WhatsApp and Messenger interoperability options aren’t a slam dunk essentially. As we’ve reported beforehand, it’s not clear whether or not different main messaging operators, reminiscent of Viber and Telegram, will help them. WhatsApp would require end-to-end encryption to allow interoperability, which might additionally current technical roadblocks. Plus, Meta requires that firms signal an settlement — the small print of which haven’t been made public — to combine with any of its methods.
Open supply messaging protocol Matrix’s founder Matthew Hodgson, for one, famous in a chat this 12 months that Matrix will work with WhatsApp, end-to-end encryption intact, “on an experimental foundation.”
Meta is trying to satisfy its obligations underneath the DMA’s messaging-related clauses, however the firm has come underneath fireplace for allegedly violating different parts of the laws.
This summer season, the European Commission mentioned that Meta’s “pay or consent” advert mannequin, which gives EU customers of Facebook and Instagram a alternative between a paid, ad-free expertise or a free, ad-supported model, did not adjust to the DMA.
