The European Union’s Digital Markets Act, after many other consumer-friendly victories, will soon bring us third-party WhatsApp integration. This is something that has been in the works for some time. Like Apple, Meta has stated that this feature will be exclusive to the EU region. After being accused of gatekeeping, this new addition will allow WhatsApp to send and receive messages from other apps.
Third-party WhatsApp integration changes the situation
Meta’s WhatsApp has always been a closed app. Users could not integrate it with any other application, let alone competing messaging platforms. The European Union, in its crusade against unfair monopolies, saw this as a problem that needed to be solved. Like many cases against Apple, the EU forced Meta to adopt changes to continue operating in EU countries.
Meta last talked about the upcoming third-party WhatsApp integration back in March. Much to the chagrin of many users, Meta has said that the feature will be exclusive to the EU. This follows Apple’s strategy of applying changes only where required by law.
WhatsApp’s third-party integration will allow users to send and receive messages from competing messaging apps. These include Signal and the very popular but somewhat controversial Telegram. The new feature will no longer require users to switch between different apps to participate in different chats. Meta was adamant that it would support all necessary encryption standards to protect user privacy and data.
TheSpAndroid gives us a first look
As usual, TheSpAndroid dove into the app and found partially complete code to share. It looks like third-party WhatsApp integration will be a manual option for users. Those who want to use it will have to enable it themselves. Users will access this feature under Settings > Account > Third Party Conversations. I can also go to Selected applications to manually choose which apps they want to share their phone number with. Selected apps will allow users of those apps to search for WhatsApp users by phone number.
Similar to what Apple did when it was forced to allow third-party app downloads, WhatsApp displays a warning. This warning message tells users that scams are more likely in third-party chats. It also warns users that other apps process user data differently than WhatsApp. The third-party WhatsApp integration UI can be seen in a video posted by TheSpAndroid. It’s worth noting that this feature will likely only support basic text messaging in addition to media sharing. Group chats, stickers, reactions, and disappearing messages may not be available at launch.