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Pressure grows on Apple to open up iMessage (finance.yahoo.com)

submitted 8 months ago by L4s to c/technology

266 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Pressure grows on Apple to open up iMessage::Samsung has joined Google’s campaign to force Apple to make iMessage RCS-compatible—but European regulators are more likely to get that job done.

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[–] alvvayson 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The EU will not mandate RCS, just like they did not mandate USB explicitly.

They will only mandate standardization, which will force Apple, Google and Meta (as owner of WhatsApp) to agree on a standard and then enforce that standard.

RCS is just the most likely outcome.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Maybe. Google certainly has a vested interest in RCS — but the others don't. RCS is a large standard which goes beyond interconnecting networks. They can just as well design something smaller that only achieves the minimum necessary.

You have to keep in mind that these companies don't want this. If they can waste time designing a new standard, they will. They are also not looking to re-implement their entire networks,, they most certainly don't want to "open them up", they just want to comply with the letter of the law with as little change as possible.

Also keep in mind that RCS has glaring faults, such as the lack of encryption.

My guess is that they're going to try to agree on a common message format, common API and common encryption protocol and leave it at that. There are already plenty of standards out there that cover these needs.

[–] alvvayson 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Perhaps. I am unfamiliar with merits of RCS versus alternatives.

Howsver, any solution that enables extra proprietary functionality outside of the standard would be non-compliant, so I don't think they will be able to get a half-baked solution through.

Also, the EU has zero interest to play softball with these companies. If they can punish them with a billion euro fine for not complying, they definitely will.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

any solution that enables extra proprietary functionality outside of the standard would be non-compliant, so I don't think they will be able to get a half-baked solution through.

Again, there is no particular standard being mandated for this. The EU just wants interoperability – being able to communicate to a person using iMessage on their phone from your phone using Whatsapp for example. How the providers accomplish it is their business. The only pressure will be to not degrade the user's experience to the point the interop becomes a liability rather than a boon.

the EU has zero interest to play softball with these companies. If they can punish them with a billion euro fine for not complying, they definitely will.

OK but they cannot simply slap fines on them and call it a day. If the companies say "what you're asking for is too difficult" they will need to take the time to examine this claim. In fact I can guarantee right now that we'll see the deadline extended at least once.

[–] alvvayson 1 points 8 months ago

We're saying the same thing.