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Google and European providers such as Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom are urging the EU to include Apple’s iMessage chat service under the DMA. As a result, Apple, for example, must make interoperability possible. The Financial Times writes this.
The European providers and Google state that iMessage meets the conditions to act as a so-called gatekeeper, as apps and services are called that fall under the rules of the Digital Markets Act. With the DMA law, the European Union wants to strengthen competition and break open closed platforms. The companies believe that if iMessage were covered by the DMA, this would be better for European companies and consumers. The providers and Google address their letter to Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, writes the Financial Times.
The DMA has various threshold values, such as a European annual turnover of more than 7.5 billion dollars and at least 10,000 monthly active European business users, before services are labeled as gatekeepers. The European Commission can relax these threshold values for specific services.
Google and the providers, including Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica and Orange, say that opening up iMessage is important for business. “It’s important that businesses can reach all their customers with modern communications services. With iMessage, business users can only send enriched messages to iOS users and must use SMS for all other users.”
It was already known that the European Commission was investigating whether iMessage falls under the DMA; Apple served before objects to that classification. The company claims that iMessage does not have 45 million monthly active European users, one of the DMA thresholds, and iPhones can be used without iMessage. Users often have multiple chat services on a smartphone and also regularly switch between chat services, so iMessage would not be a gatekeeper, according to Apple. The company also states that iMessage is intended for consumers and not directly for business use.
IMessage is a chat service that lets iOS users send higher resolution images and videos and includes end-to-end encryption. These chats can be recognized by blue text fields. When an Android user is added to an iMessage conversation, the chat reverts to SMS, those iMessage features are no longer supported, and green text bubbles appear.
Google has wanted iMessage to be opened up for some time now spoke last January still about a ‘lock-in strategy’ with ‘peer pressure and bullying behaviour’. The company claims that consumers are pressured by those green text dots to switch to iPhones, because with an Android they are socially excluded, especially among American teenagers.
