After investigation, Apple’s instant messaging, iMessage, and search engine Bingwere not considered as services “ essential » to European consumers, and will therefore be able to escape the rules of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) which comes into force on March 6, 2024.
In a few weeks, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) will be a reality in the countries of the European Union. This new text aims to regulate the largest digital players, particularly Americans, and imposes new binding rules in order to guarantee healthier competition, but also to make life easier for users with new provisions. Among the measures required, we can cite the interoperability of instant messaging, if the latter are used by more than 45 million people on a daily basis. And this measure was not at all to Apple’s taste.
iMessage will remain a closed platform
Apple jealously guards its instant messenger, iMessage. Available only on the brand’s devices, the platform allows you to send messages and multimedia content via the web, but does not offer any compatibility with other messaging services and protocols, except the old SMS. Officially, Apple locks its product for security reasons, but iMessage also remains a selling point for its iPhones and other iPads.
The DMA requires “gatekeepers”, i.e. the services considered to be the most important on the European market, to offer complete compatibility with other messaging services such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.
For several months, Apple has been fighting to convince the European Union that iMessage is not as popular a service as its competitors on the European market and the arguments of the Californian manufacturer’s lawyers have borne fruit.
iMessage has finally been excluded from the list of major services, and will not have to comply with the new regulatory rules in force in the coming months. Apple has, however, announced the integration of the RCS standard, SMS 2.0 which offers more features such as message encryption, as well as sending multimedia content (photos, videos) in high resolution. The RCS should thus slightly improve communications between iPhones and Android smartphones.
Microsoft’s search and advertising activities are also excluded from the DMA
The two other services to have been set aside in this list of gatekeepers are Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, and its Edge browser, as well as the American giant’s advertising activity.
European regulators have finally been convinced that these activities do not carry much weight in the face of the monopoly exercised by Google, both on online search and on advertising.
Unsurprisingly, Google, which will have to apply the new DMA rules to the letter, reacted quickly to this decision by the European Commission and did not fail to make its dissatisfaction known through one of its spokespersons. words: “ Excluding these popular services from the DMA rules means that consumers and businesses will not be offered the breadth of choice that already exists on other, more open platforms “.
Who has never used instant messaging instead of the very famous SMS? There is no doubt, communicating with loved ones quickly and in just a few clicks, instant messaging has become very popular, even essential.
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Source : The Verge
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