EU: Google wants iMessage forced to talk to more apps

A European Union (HUH) continues to study whether to classify iMessage, the default messaging app for Apple devices, as a service falling within Apple's classification as a gatekeeper company, alongside Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and ByteDance/TikTok. As it originally did not reach the minimum threshold of active users (45 million individual/month and 10 thousand corporate/year), it was not obliged to implement interoperability with other apps, unlike Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, the only two included, which is not even enough to be a problem for Meta, owner of both.
EU studies whether iMessage qualifies as a “gatekeeper” or not; Google and European operators are in favor (Credit: cottonbro/Pexels)

Apple, Google, EU against iMessage

The gatekeeper rule, established by the Digital Markets Law (DMA), is imposed on large technology companies with a market capitalization of more than €75 billion (~R$391.23 billion, as of 11/08/2023), or with an annual gross revenue of more than €7.6 billion (~R$39.65 billion), which provides at least one category of internet service, which may be connection, search, streaming, storage, etc. The law says that services from the six included companies, which reach the marks mentioned at the beginning of the text, are obliged to observe the following standards, if they want to operate in the 27 EU member countries: Privileging products and services using their own hardware and solutions is prohibited; Pre-installed apps must allow the user to be removed, without exceptions; Instant messengers must all talk to each other, and are prohibited from limiting resources to specific platforms and hardware; External companies must have access to all data generated in the services provided by gatekeepers; Data from European users cannot be used for targeted display of advertisements unless they expressly authorize it. Google was by far the most affected by the determinations of the Competition and Internal Market commissions, led by the inflexible Thierry Breton, who has been bringing down the hammer across the world that does not follow EU rules; in addition to being the only one with video services (YouTube) and search (Google Search) marked to behave, others include Android, Play Store, Maps, Shopping, Chrome and Ads. Apple only had three products included, iOS, Safari and App Store, which are subject to the aforementioned determinations in their categories, and to Cupertino's relief, iMessage was left out, as it is much less popular than other apps on the continent, like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram, which also escaped. Apple is absolutely against the idea of ​​subjecting iMessage to interoperability with other apps, especially those from Google (insert the current one here), even Android's native messenger, which supports RCS, a technology developed as the successor to the archaic SMS , which incorporates functionalities and features of modern instant messengers. Although Tim Cook's company considered the possibility of incorporating RCS into its app, it never did so for a simple reason: Google has been promoting the adoption of the format as the standard on mobile devices for years, and has been trying unsuccessfully to convince Apple to adopting it, which would be very advantageous for Android, but would have no real benefit for iOS. WhatsApp and Telegram are much more popular around the world, but the North American messenger market is dominated by iMessage, and it is this audience that Google wants to have access to. Apple does not give up the hegemony of its service at home, and consciously depreciates communication with RCS users on iMessage. The method is quite cruel: any message that has not been sent by an iGadget is displayed in green balloons, and converted to SMS, which intentionally results in truncated texts and detonated images and videos, to fit into the very limited MMS format. Communications between iPhones, iPads and Macs are displayed in blue balloons, with maximum quality media, in addition to users having access to other exclusive features; This differentiation is taken seriously in the USA, many simply block receiving SMS messages, especially because they will have to pay for them, and this has been mocked by singers in songs, more than once.
Google hates the humiliation that RCS users are subjected to in iMessage (Credit: Disclosure/Apple) Google HATES the treatment that Apple gives to Android users in iMessage, so much so that the giant maintains a campaign to force public opinion, in order to convince Apple to “fix” the app and adopt RCS, but Tim Cook doesn't care. Unless the company is legally forced to implement interoperability, nothing will change. Which brings us to the current situation with the EU. Before the gatekeeper rankings were announced, all companies had the chance to defend their services. Apple didn't object to the App Store, but argued that iMessage “didn't have enough users” in Europe to meet the threshold, and the argument was accepted… initially. The big problem for Tim Cook is the fact that the EU hates competing standards, and the bloc is in favor of RCS, already adopted by Google, local operators and other apps. If iMessage is allowed to operate as it is today on the block, this would imply Telegram, WhatsApp and co. talking to each other, but iGadget users would remain isolated in their Walled Gardens; This is something that lawmakers are not likely to tolerate. There is a real possibility that iMessage ends up being classified as an app within the gatekeeper category, even if it does not reach the minimum number of users, to enable unified and non-deprecated communication between all Europeans on mobile devices, and Google agrees with this, even because it suits you. Executives from the search giant and the largest local operators, namely Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica and Orange, would have come to the understanding that iMessage must be forced to talk to RCS on Android, to enable its operations on iGadgets without messages suffer when sent from Android devices. In a jointly signed letter sent to European regulators and confirmed by multiple sources, as determined by the Financial Times, the group's intention is very clear, although the focus is to benefit corporate users:

“It is essential that companies can reach all their customers, making use of modern communications services with improved features (…). Through iMessage, corporate users can only send messages with modern features to and from iOS users, and are relegated traditional (limited) SMS communication to other end users.”

As Apple no longer discloses the exact number of users of its products and services (at least not in public), it is up to the EU to carry out research and analysis to determine whether or not iMessage reaches the user threshold, but Google and Operators argue that the classification should be imposed on Apple regardless of the number, to standardize communication between users, and not detract from anyone's experience. The EU has until February 2024 to decide whether iMessage, or any other product or service, should be included in the final list of gatekeeper companies, and from then on, everyone will have 6 months to comply, that is, until August; the deadline for those in the first wave ends in March, and only applies to EU member countries. Source: Financial Times