Apple’s iMessage keeps its ‘walled garden’ status in the EU

Apple’s Messages icon
The European Commission this week adopted decisions closing a market investigation that was launched on September 5, 2023 under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), finding that Apple should not be designated as a “gatekeeper” for its messaging service iMessage.
Kevin Purdy for Ars Technica:
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The iMessage service did meet the definition of a “core platform,” serving at least 45 million EU users monthly and being controlled by a firm with at least 75 billion euros in market capitalization. But after “a thorough assessment of all arguments” during a five-month investigation, the Commission found that iMessage and Microsoft’s Bing search, Edge browser, and ad platform “do not qualify as gatekeeper services.”
Had the Commission ruled otherwise, Apple would have had until August to open its service. It would have been interesting to see how the company would have complied, given that it provides end-to-end encryption and registers senders based on information from their registered Apple devices.

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MacDailyNews Take: That level of governmental bureaucratic meddling would have destroyed iMessage.

Google had pushed the Commission to force Apple into “gatekeeper status,” part of Google’s larger campaign to make Apple treat Android users better when they trade SMS messages with iPhone users. While Apple has agreed to take up RCS, an upgraded form of carrier messaging with typing indicators and better image and video quality, it will not provide encryption for Android-to-iPhone SMS, nor remove the harsh green coloring that particularly resonates with younger users.

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MacDailyNews Take: You want to participate as a first class citizen in Apple iMessage service? Get a real iPhone.
With the UK — where Apple’s iMessage is actually used in numbers — no longer a part of the quasi-governmental EU bureaucracy and the majority of the people in EU countries using WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Messenger, etc., it’s entirely possible, if not probable, that Apple falls outside of the EU red tape machine’s latest bout of innovation-stifling overreach. — MacDailyNews, September 5, 2023
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