It’s #GetTheMessage, regulatory style.

Google turns to regulators to make Apple open up iMessage::iMessage serves should be regulated under the EU’s new Digital Markets Act (DMA), Google and a group of major European telcos has told the European Commission.

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    6•1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The letter arrives as the European Commission investigates whether iMessage meets the requirements to be regulated under the bloc’s strict DMA rules.

    Google has been very vocal about its desire for Apple to adopt RCS, the cross-platform messaging standard pitched as the successor to SMS, with its #GetTheMessage campaign.

    “Apple’s iMessage lock-in is a documented strategy,” Google senior vice-president Hiroshi Lockheimer posted on X, then known as Twitter, last year.

    The letter, which the FT notes was signed by an unnamed Google senior vice-president along with the CEOs of Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, and Orange, argues that iMessage meets the threshold for being a core platform service under the Digital Markets Act.

    The company pointed The Financial Times towards a statement that says “consumers today have access to a wide variety of messaging apps, and often use many at once, which reflects how easy it is to switch between them.”

    According to the Commission, Apple has previously argued that iMessage isn’t popular enough in the EU to warrant being designated as a core platform service, and that it lacks support for business-focused features like APIs.

    The original article contains 528 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!