The EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which comes into force in March 2024, demands WhatsApp to open up its core platform services to competitors.
WhatsApp is working on allowing interoperability with other encrypted messaging apps. However, as suggested by Dick Brouwer, an engineering director at WhatsApp, the company has been working on interoperability for the past two years, not in response to the DMA. “We believe that interoperability is good for users, good for the industry, and good for society,” Brouwer told Wired.
The interoperability will allow WhatsApp users to receive messages from their contacts, even when they send them from a different platform.
For starters, interoperability between different platforms will focus on text messaging, sending images, voice messages, videos, and files between two people. More advanced features, such as calls and group chats, will be “years down the line.”
WhatsApp users will, however, have a choice. Users would have an option to ‘opt-in.’ This means that if a user doesn’t want to receive messages from other platforms in their WhatsApp inbox, they can choose not to opt in.
If a user opts in, they will see the external messages in a separate inbox at the top of their WhatsApp screen.
To send messages to WhatsApp, third-party apps will need to encrypt them using the Signal Protocol, and then package them using XML, following WhatsApp’s client-server protocols. Other apps would also be allowed to use their own encryption protocols, provided they can demonstrate and meet the security standards that WhatsApp sets out in its guidance.
Brouwer says more details about WhatsApp interoperability will be shared in March.
Source: Wired
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