The EU Digital Markets Act’s Interoperability Rule Addresses An Important Need, But Raises Difficult Security Problems for Encrypted Messaging

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The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) allows new messaging services to demand interoperability (the ability to exchange messages) from the internet’s largest messaging services (like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and iMessage). Interoperability is an important tool to promote competition and prevent monopolists from shutting down user-empowering innovation. But an interoperability requirement for messaging services that are end-to-end encrypted raises particularly thorny security and privacy concerns, and those concerns need to be addressed before interoperability requirements are enforced against those services. Looking into these concerns will take years—much longer than the text of the DMA currently envisions—but we have some thoughts on where to start.

The DMA’s Interoperability Rule

The DMA is a complex new law aimed at addressing the “gatekeeper” power of Big Tech firms. While some of the final details of the DMA are still in flux, negotiators from the EU Parliament and the Council of Europe have reached a “political agreement.” The drafters considered several proposals relating to interoperability, including rules that would cover gatekeepers’ social networking services as well as messaging apps. But the compromise between the EU lawmakers that’s on the way to becoming law only includes an interoperability requirement for messaging apps. Specifically, the giant gatekeepers will be required to make their messaging services interoperable with other messaging apps at the request of competing developers. Negotiators have agreed to assess the feasibility of including an interoperability requirement for social networking as part of a future review of the DMA.

The DMA’s interoperability rule will apply to “number-independent” messaging services that are part of “gatekeeper” platforms, meaning platforms with the power to control other companies’ access to customers. This probably includes messaging apps from Apple, Google, Meta Platforms (e.g., Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram Direct Messenger), and Microsoft. Of these,

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