Today, let\u2019s talk about Europe\u2019s aggressive move to require big online messaging services to be interoperable, and see how WhatsApp is thinking about the contradictory mandates it\u2019s receiving from regulators.<\/p>\n

In Europe, two big ideas currently hold sway among the people regulating technology companies. One is that it should be easier to compete with tech giants, and that a good way to accomplish this is to force their services to play nicely with others. Two is that users\u2019 data privacy is of paramount concern, and any data sharing between corporations is to be treated with the utmost suspicion.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear the extent which regulators realize that, in hugely important ways, these ideas are often in conflict. But at the moment they are on an absolute collision course, and it doesn\u2019t feel hyperbolic to say that the future of end-to-end encryption hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n