March 7 is near and it will be a big day in Europe. All companies that are designated as gatekeepers or operate gatekeeper services must implement changes that comply with the requirements of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in Europe.
We’ve primarily focused on Apple and iPhone sideloading, but there are other important changes coming to the European tech landscape. Chat apps that are gatekeepers will have to open up to rivals on March 7. Apple’s iMessage isn’t one of them, but Meta’s WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger apps are.
WhatsApp announced a few months ago that it would enable regional chat interoperability, so we knew the feature was in the works. We haven’t seen it in action yet, but the leak shows that support for third-party chat apps is being tested on Android. One of those leaks shows off the best part of the feature: you can turn it off. It’s up to WhatsApp users to actually enable support for other apps.
The WhatsApp screenshots below are from a couple WABetaInfo reports. The blog is known for sharing unreleased features it discovers in beta versions. The first screenshot is taken from WhatsApp version 2.24.5.20, which is available to Google Play beta testers:
As you can see in the image above, WhatsApp will let you chat with Instagram users, among other third-party chat apps. The key thing to remember is that third-party chat apps will need to ask Meta to be included in WhatsApp’s interoperability system.
The blog says they tested the feature with Instagram. Choosing a different Meta chat app is probably the easiest thing you can do for testing purposes. WABetaInfo says that the app will display a chat information screen for third-party chat apps.
“Since profile names and photos are unavailable in third-party chats, WhatsApp will instead display the default profile picture and the name of the third-party app from which the conversation originated,” the blog says.
Other restrictions will apply. Third-party chat apps will not get group chat support on WhatsApp (or other interoperable chat apps). Similarly, you won’t get call support at first. This is all in line with the DMA requirements for gatekeeper chat applications.
The second screen comes from the newer beta version of WhatsApp for Android, version 2.24.6.2. The image below shows that WhatsApp will allow you to manage third-party chat support within your WhatsApp installation.
That is, you can choose to enable or disable the feature on your device. You’ll be able to choose which apps will work with WhatsApp and which won’t. As someone who doesn’t want the interoperability of any chat app, this is the WhatsApp interoperability feature that I will use first.
I will make sure that interoperability is disabled on my devices. I don’t want a cross-app chat experience and I’ve said that several times. I prefer standalone apps for each IM platform. Having everything within a single system sounds like a nightmare. I don’t want to worry about things not working between two different platforms. Or about privacy and/or security.
I am a long time WhatsApp user who wants to continue chatting with my WhatsApp contacts via WhatsApp. I will use iMessage with my friends and family who want to use iMessage on iPhone. And so on. I will switch to the chat app you prefer instead of enabling third party chat app inside WhatsApp.
Of all the things DMA requires, chat interoperability is the worst idea. No use to the user, and I’ll die on that hill.
The fact that WhatsApp will offer the user the option to turn interoperability on and off is no surprise. DMA requires user control of the feature. That is, DMA can enforce interoperability for gatekeeper chat applications, but it cannot force Europeans to actually use it.
Screens similar to the one above are likely to be available on Android and iPhone in Europe soon. The March 7 deadline is approaching again, so Meta will need to prepare support for interoperability. I would expect similar experiences for Facebook Messenger, which is also a gatekeeper service.