New EU rules mean WhatsApp and Messenger must be interoperable with other chat apps. Here’s how that will work.
For about the past two years, WhatsApp has been building a way for other messaging apps to plug themselves into its service and let people chat across apps—all without breaking the end-to-end encryption it uses to protect the privacy and security of people’s messages. The move is the first time the chat app has opened itself up this way, and it potentially offers greater competition. It isn’t a shift entirely of WhatsApp’s own making.
asked 10 owners of messaging or chat services—including Google, Telegram, Viber, and Signal—whether they intend to look at interoperability or had worked with WhatsApp on its plans. The majority of companies didn’t respond to the request for comment. Those that did, Snap and Discord, said they had nothing to add.