{"id":2441,"date":"2022-03-29T14:52:21","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T14:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/29\/three-ways-the-european-union-might-ruin-whatsapp\/"},"modified":"2022-03-29T14:52:22","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T14:52:22","slug":"three-ways-the-european-union-might-ruin-whatsapp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/29\/three-ways-the-european-union-might-ruin-whatsapp\/","title":{"rendered":"Three ways the European Union might ruin WhatsApp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/23001152\/whatsapp-eu-digital-markets-act-messaging-interoperable<\/a>
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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

I have now written about global threats<\/a> to<\/a> encryption<\/a> enough<\/a> that I feel like a somewhat tedious party guest, always steering the conversation back to my pet issue no matter what else is happening elsewhere. But the aftermath of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, in which Moscow police stopped antiwar protesters and rifled through the messages on their phones<\/a>, offered only the latest illustration of why it all matters: the ability to communicate privately in a world of ubiquitous expanding surveillance and data retention is of real, practical importance to almost all of us.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, European officials reached an agreement on the Digital Markets Act<\/a>, a landmark piece of legislation that would reshape the ways in which tech giants compete with their rivals. The act applies to what it calls \u201cgatekeepers\u201d \u2014 defined as any platform that has a market capitalization of \u20ac75 billion, or more than \u20ac7.5 billion in European revenue. So: yes to WhatsApp and iMessage; no to Signal and Telegram.<\/p>\n

Among many other provisions, the DMA would likely bar Amazon from using data from its third-party sellers to inform its own product development, and require Android to offer users alternatives to Google search and email.<\/p>\n

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