WhatsApp has also been targeted by European governments, as it is considered a messaging service with a closed ecosystem. Under the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), Meta has to make WhatsApp a messaging application that can also send and receive cross-platform.
Last year, WABetaInfo shared screenshots of third-party chats being tested. According to WhatsApp's director of engineering, Dick Brouwer in an interview with Wired – their goal is to allow third-party messaging services to send text, images, videos, voice messages and files directly to WhatsApp and WhatsApp can do the same.
Brouwer shared that if third-party messaging such as iMessage, RCS, Telegram, Signal and others want to be connected to WhatsApp, each of these applications must adhere to the Signal Protocol standard to encrypt messages. Meta also accepts other standards as long as they meet WhatsApp's security requirements and each of these messaging platforms also needs to sign a contract with Meta.
At the moment it is still unknown when Meta will offer WhatsApp that supports this cross-platform. Is it like Messenger where even SMS messages can be received or like Beeper which offers multiple messaging platforms in one application? So is this feature limited to users in Europe or will all users be able to use it? The DMA gave Meta until March 2024 to come up with a solution. Let's wait for more information together.