The Digital Market Actmentioned more often by its acronym DMA, is now a done thing in Europe, and is destined to mark an epochal change of pace for European users who rely on platforms and services managed by the so-called gatekeeper.
Meta is obviously among the gatekeepers identified by the European Union. Just like Google and apple, the social networking giant will also have to adapt its services to be compliant with the DMA. And among these services we find WhatsApp, one of the most used instant messaging platforms in the world.
In the last few hours Meta has released a statement with the aim of explain how the company intends to allow the use of Whatsapp through third party servicesa requirement required by the DMA in Europe.
In fact, the DMA requires that, within three months since its entry into force, Meta is able to enable interoperability with other services on WhatsApp. This means that within three months WhatsApp must also be usable via third-party services, and not just the official one we are used to.
However, Meta reported that it could be more time needed so that everything is operational. The DMA also requires that within the first year WhatsApp ensures interoperability with third-party services by supporting communications on its platform via individual chats and sharing of multimedia files such as images, videos or voice messages.
Subsequently, interoperability must also be ensured with regards to group chat and video calls. Clearly this is not a simple process, also because Meta, in addition to protecting the own interestsmust also protect those of its users by insuring them same safety standards which have always characterized WhatsApp.
Therefore, Meta said that it will be necessary make agreements with third-party services that intend to provide support for WhatsApp. In this sense, the company will also require such suppliers to comply with the same safety standards which characterize its proprietary protocol, such as the Signal protocol.
Clearly Meta expects the end-to-end encryption remains intact for all content that will be exchanged on its platform via third-party services. We’ll see what the first independent services will be that support access and use of WhatsApp.
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