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Comment by jraph | Hacker News Reader

And that they are reluctantly complying in bad faith in the most hostile way they found. Is this going to fly? Where do these 60 days come from for instance? How is it any useful and who is going to want to implement such interoperability under such terms?

This reads like a lot of words to say Fuck You Europe to me.

Well, feelings are mutual, at least we are on the same page, them and me.

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You may dislike it, but EU law only applies in the EU; it sounds like full compliance to me, not "bad faith" compliance.

Messaging-interoperability is the one aspect of the DMA I don't support. These apps are free to download; and if you care about security (and use Signal) you'll want to avoid cross-service messaging anyway.

Why don't you support it?

There are government services that use whatsapp in my country. This argument "just don't use it" is very tired.

Interoperability can be achieved with E2E encryption.

> Interoperability can be achieved with E2E encryption.

On paper yes. But I wouldn't trust it.

https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-interoperability-messag...

> There will also be the option, Brouwer says, for third-party developers to add a proxy between their apps and WhatsApp’s server. This, he says, could give developers more “flexibility” and remove the need for them to use WhatsApp’s client-server protocols, but it also “increases the potential attack vectors.”

> There are government services that use whatsapp in my country. This argument "just don't use it" is very tired.

I'm saying I wouldn't trust or use interoperability. If something/someone is on WhatsApp I'd do it through WhatsApp. Doesn't mean I can't use Signal with all those who use that.

Xmpp

> These apps are free to download

Yes but you aren’t truly free to choose which app you download. You have to use the one being used by the people you want to message. That is of strong benefit to incumbents.

Has there been meaningful innovation in messaging? I had free AIM on $3 T-Zones in 2006. So I see no downsides to just forcing interoperability.

Meta and Apple are paying for far more bandwidth than what AIM was moving around back then. Very high quality videos, audio, pictures, and gifs not to mention files and group video calls.

Their will. I'm perfectly fine receiving full quality media as files, I don't need meta to reformat my media to reduce their bandwidth bill and train their model, they could redirect me to the original file if I am using another messaging app.

Many add a bunch of bloat that I simply do not want. It'd be nice to have a chat app that only do chat.

> you aren’t truly free to choose which app you download. You have to use the one

Singular? You'd just use whichever app a given person is on (everyone here has 3+ chat apps installed). Wouldn't network effects only kick in when group chats are involved?

Yes, and failing that, you could simply revert to plain old SMS. IMO, a better course of action would have been forcing Whatsapp to provide an alternative way to access their group chats.

Or alternatively, forcing all phones and carriers to support RCS as a condition for certification, and funding the development of a quality FOSS RCS client.

> You may dislike it, but EU law only applies in the EU;

Even then, that consecutive 60-day limit sounds bizarre. For instance, someone who has dual citizenship could legitimately switch between an EU and a non-EU country every single month. Why shouldn't that person have access to these "Interoperable Messaging Services" when in the EU?

If you switch every month then you will have been present in the EU within any 60-day window?

Literally lawyering up the implementation

This is definitely their tactic, and it may work because they can be incredibly obstreperous at every turn and make the commission fight every small detail tooth and nail up to the highest court.

I don't support meta and apple's approach, but while something is done about it: I suppose you can use a (paid) vpn with servers in Europe, because meta shouldn't have access to your location by any mean beside the internet connection. Just a bandaid

EU law only applies in the EU, but an actor who doesn't respect EU law outside of the EU may be refused business in the EU. I agree the precedents are not strong to propose an outright ban (eg. Coca Cola murdering trade unionists and forest defenders in South America) but it would perfectly make sense on paper.

Digital services are global. Regulation can be different from physical good regulation.

Heck, in the US even taxes are global

Edit: For US citizens

Actually I forgot about iMessage. It’s the only service where forced interoperability makes sense (because you can’t “just download an app”, you’re locked out of the service unless you buy an Apple device), and yet it was excluded. Hopefully the EU changes the law so it applies to iMessage.

in Europe very few people are using iMessage, most of them are using Whatsapp

Southern europe yes, further north its almost no WA and a ton of iMessage

iMessage already interoperates, with SMS and MMS.

It seems all companies complying with EU laws (Meta and Apple) spent most resources on lawyers and accountants. To make this unattractive to users and competitors.

Without additional regulations across the globe it’ll be simpler playing the geofencing game for those companies.

That'll just come back to bite them in the ass during round 2

World's most stupendous & drawn out Yak shave, if one thinks about it

Sounds less like "bad faith" and more like "I was hoping that Meta would cave and offer this to everyone, but turns out they don't have to do that because EU jurisdiction ends at EU borders"?

Fair enough.

Now, not sure what I was hoping for. None of my messages currently go through Meta and I'm quite happy with this.

As an implementer, I certainly wouldn't want to police and track my users and their location for a chat service, and as a user I wouldn't want a chat service to track me.

I also certainly don't want to depend on a system which is unreliable because it artificially depends on my or my contacts position on Earth

This whole thing sounds like something I will not want to use anyway.

You tend to see similar terms around the "fair use" of free EU roaming.

Some of them even threaten back charges if it turns out you used more data abroad than at the home country over a long enough period.

I called their bluff once and got away with it, but their systems may have improved since then

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