The European Union recently amended the Digital Markets Act to make it mandatory for tech giants, including Apple, to open up their messaging platforms. This means that Europe will make it mandatory for Apple’s iMessage to provide cross-platform communication.
The Digital Marketplace Act, approved by the European Council in July 2022 and set to enter into force on May 2, 2023, contains several provisions designed to prevent large technology companies from dominating the market and harming their competitors.
One of the most important changes in the EU’s recent revisions is a requirement for Apple to open up iMessage, a key selling point in Apple’s iPhone ecosystem that is particularly popular among younger demographics in the United States.
In the bill revised by the European Union institutions, messaging services such as iMessage, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are required to be open to realize the interoperability of messaging platforms, allowing users to exchange messages, send files or make video calls across messaging applications.
Apple engineers believe the change could compromise the end-to-end encryption and other privacy features offered by iMessage. Apple says it’s also not currently considering integrating RCS, a messaging protocol that Google and others are pushing Apple to adopt.
