After missing a six-month deadline given by the European Union to DMA to offer interoperability with other services, it appears that Goal in this sense, it will make a shift in the community space, because it will make available to users in the said area the new possibilities that it will enable Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp work with third-party apps. This increases the possibility of their separation, since the use of interoperability is not mandatory for users.

In addition to the way WhatsApp and Messenger conversations are organized, Meta also creates new notifications to let users know when they can link conversations from compatible apps. The parent company says it has “exceeded the ‘core’ features required for interoperable messaging by providing features such as reactions, direct replies, write indicators and read receipts.”

As it has already been shown on several occasions, the European Union does not hesitate to fine large American corporations that do not comply with the current legislation in the community space, so next year Meta will introduce the ability to create groups with other people in third-party chats to its messaging services. This, far from stopping there, will go further in the future with support for video calls and voice calls, which the company plans to arrive in 2027. Third-party interoperability means that both WhatsApp and Messenger must be compatible with third-party apps such as iMessage, Telegram, Google Message, Signal, and more.

Meta is considered one of the porter (guardians) DMA along with Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Bytedance (the company behind TikTok) and Microsoft. However, it should be remembered that the law does not affect companies as a whole, but rather specific services that operate under them. This allowed Apple and Microsoft to fall out of compliance for their iMessage and Bing services, while Opera asked for the Edge web browser to be included.

In addition to interoperability, the DMA provides that Designated Services cannot do the following: classify their own services and products more favorably than similar services offered by third parties through the Platform porterprevent consumers from contacting companies outside the platform porterprevent users from uninstalling pre-installed programs or applications if they wish and track end users outside of the underlying platform service porter for personalized advertising purposes.

It is clear that interoperability with other services involves not only legal issues but also technical issues. Here, WhatsApp and Messenger will use the same Signal protocol to keep messages private. In a copy of the agreement that third-party services must sign, Meta says it will make the Signal protocol available to partners who request it.