Meta has offered details on how it intends to implement interoperability in WhatsApp and Messenger with third-party messaging services as the Digital Markets Act (DMA) went into effect in the European Union. "This allows users of third-party providers who choose to enable interoperability (interop) to send and receive messages with opted-in users of either Messenger or WhatsApp – both designated by the European Commission (EC) as being required to independently provide interoperability to third-party messaging services," Meta's Dick Brouwer said. DMA, which officially became enforceable on March 7, 2024, requires companies in gatekeeper positions – Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and ByteDance – to clamp down on anti-competitive practices from tech players, level the playing field, as well as compel them to open some of their services to competitors. As part of its efforts to comply with the landmark regulations, the social media giant said it expects third-party providers to use the Signal Protocol, which is used in both WhatsApp and Messenger for end-to-end encryption (E2EE). The third-parties are also required to package the encrypted communications into message stanzas in eXtensible Markup Language (XML). Should the message contain media content, an encrypted version is downloaded by Meta clients from the third-party messaging servers using a Meta proxy service. The company is also proposing what's called a "plug-and-play" model that allows third-party…Read More