I thought iMessage would totally be designated a gatekeeper status.
I guess it's still in investigation, and being fair, it's not as popular a messaging application as it is in the USA where it would absolutely needs to be forced to open up. Just not as bad an issue in Europe I guess.
Yeah, iMessage just... didn't really take off here. In Europe, WhatsApp holds a much greater market share in the West, while the further east you go, Telegram becomes the more dominant means of communication.
It's probably in part because of the fact that iOS isn't as big in Europe; outside of the Netherlands (where iOS controls about 70% of the smartphone market) it tends to be pretty equal in market share with Android and there's of course no iMessage on Android. People want to talk to each other, share photos and WhatsApp was cross-platform with Android basically from the start.
Telegram is a bit of a late arrival comparatively, and I couldn't tell you why it's big in East Europe, it just... is. Probably something to do with the remaining Russian influence in those countries?
It makes total sense why WhatsApp is designated a gatekeeper but iMessage isn't.
Honestly, I have experience with both and Telegram is far superior. Yes, it was created by "Russian Zuck", and it was also blocked in Russia for a long time. It is argued, if FSB has keys to decrypt Telegram. I personally did not see evidence to that. Some of the options widely used in the EE:
- by default chats are not e2e but there is a quite secret option.
- built-in proxy support to add another encryption layer and avoid blockings.
- there are news channels which is a very convenient way of getting and sharing content. Yes, WhatsApp is getting these now.
There is a ton of other features which are only now coming to WhatsApp, which has e2e by default for every chat.
On the other hand, lately, I feel that Telegram is going to also have-it-all which is annoying. Even stories now
Many of my friends in Germany have Telegram as well and I think that it’s mainly because it has by far the best multi device (esp. Desktop / Notebook) UX. Switching devices with Telegram and using it on several devices concurrently has always been super easy.
IANAL and this isn't an argument of whats legally a monopoly in the US, but I think "dominant" or "not dominant" across the entire population is an insufficient way to look at market power when network effects are involved. As an example, in the US its about 50/50 but Gen Z is 87/13 towards iPhone and there switching to Android presents a much much higher cost than a 50/50 or less scenario. Apple has considerable market power over a large slice of the population that network tightly together. You also see incidental enforcement of social stratification where wealthier users are more likely to use iPhone.
I think those are things that someone could be legitimately concerned about from a competition standpoint without considering iMessage to be dominant across the entire market.
I just pretend that rather than Tim Cook's face telling us that if we want to communicate with grandma we need to buy her an iphone, it's AT&T / Ma Bell telling us that.
The iMessage dominance is a uniquely American issue.
In the most of the world people don't use it. Instead, multiplatform apps are the norm. It's not realistic to expect that most of the people around you will have an iPhone to use iMessage because iPhones are just too expensive to justify the purchase when you can get away with a much cheaper android device.
Also, ?reverse? network effect. Even if i message someone whom I know they have an iPhone I'll use WhatsApp because I want to have all my conversations in the same place.
The only time i explicitly use iMessage is when I want to send a photo as unaltered as possible - wapp recompresses them for size.
> The only time i explicitly use iMessage is when I want to send a photo as unaltered as possible - wapp recompresses them for size.
Are you sure about this? I usually send images/videos via WhatsApp because, AFAICT, they are sent unchanged (unlike Facebook messenger, for example), and know multiple people who do the same thing.
Afaik there's a mysterious 'send as file' in WhatsApp that I haven't mastered that will indeed send the files unmodified, but if you just send from your gallery they will recompress.
I generally don't care about my photos THAT much to figure out how to send them completely unmodified.
Yeah, if US would care about free market, iMessage would be an issue.
But in EU it doesn't really (yet) have such a big market share.
Although I do hope they conclude that iMessage needs to be an interoperable service - basic human communication services shouldn't be constrainted to a single electronics device brand.
When I open iMessage and send a message to somebody using an Android phone, they receive it. When they reply, I see it in iMessage. When I react to something, the reaction is transliterated into text and sent via SMS. When I send an image, it is sent via MMS. It’s fair to say that there’s interoperability.
you go to your messaging app that comes pre-installed on your phone and you send a text message. the other person, no matter the device, will receive it.
May not have met the number of users requirement. I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t 45 million _active_ users in the EU; I’m pretty deep into the Apple ecosystem, but virtually never use it. WhatsApp, and to some extent Telegram, have largely won that race in Europe.
I'd guess that if iMessage had a market share even remotely close to that of the US, it'd be a much bigger issue and would definitely qualify. Still, here it really isn't, no one actively uses it (if they do, it's probably because what they really wanted to do was send an SMS because they were unsure if the person had WhatsApp or something, and iMessage converted it)
Because iMessage is a big reason people do not switch from iPhone to an Android phone in the US, so if Apple gets more market share in Europe and everyone start using iMessage, it would be reasonable to think this would start affecting competition as people become "locked in" due to the messaging of one over another platform.
But, like I said, it's not a big of a deal in Europe where most people use whatsapp or facebook messenger over native messaging. At least that's what Apple has claimed. Probably because iMessage is not fully functional on android and so people just can't communicate with others effectively.
But in the USA, everyone has iPhones, so everyone uses iMessage. The same messaging platforms exist in the USA as in Europe; but it doesn't matter, it's all about where your friends/family are. If everyone is on iMessage then you gotta be on iMessage and if the only way of getting iMessage (effectively) is having an iPhone then you just have to have an iPhone.
This is now entering personal experience territory but I know plenty of Americans who have android phones and are thinking of getting an iPhone because of iMessage, particularly now that the iPhones are going to come with usb-c (thanks, Europe). On the other hand, I know people who have iPhones and want to switch to android but are held back due to everyone they know using iMessage.
I mean, it's possible to survive without it, sure. But it's a significant boulder on the road of migration. So that's why I think it should be open up.
Thanks that's helpful context. But if you want to switch from iPhone (thanks, US) to Android, what's the actual barrier? Do you lose all the photos/videos sent to you on iMessage?
I think for most people its more about the network effects. Once you switch any iMessage groups you are in get degraded to MMS which means you'll probably just get dropped from the group so that the iPhone users can keep using read receipts/typing indicators, send higher quality media, and get lower latency/higher reliability chat.
Even for one-on-one conversations you and the other participant immediately lose a lot of QoL features that you took for granted.
Obviously there are crossplatform apps that offer those features but now the friction of switching to Android includes trying to convince every iPhone user you interact with or will interact with to download another app and set up an account or both of you have to deal with a pretty miserable chat experience.
Its definitely not the end of the world but if your goal is to promote competition then lowering switching friction has to be a big part of that.
The most evident is that if you're running iMessage on Android your messages will show on an iPhone as a green bubble (as opposed to a blue one if you were using an iPhone). This might not seem like a great a deal, but it is, specially in young people... there is a lot of cultural baggage against "green bubble". You might get bullied in school for it. Apple basically "brands you" to set you apart.
There's also limited reactions (when you "heart" or "thumbs up" a message) and some types of messages are just not supported in the android version of the app.
So, in reality, apple kind of goes out of its way to make the app just not fully compatible in android precisely because they want people to feel left out if they're not using an iPhone.
I think it's important to think of this issue from the perspective of a first-time phone buyer. Which at this point might be a 10-12yo, if all their friends are texting on iMessage and you're the only one that's different... well, I think a lot of us know that's not a feeling you necessarily will enjoy.
I think the barrier would be loss of access to friends and family. Especially group chats. From inertia, conversations would continue on iMessage without the person who switched.
I would like to see iMessage on other platforms, but I don't think I'd want the protocol itself opened up. That would lead to much more spam (I saw this starting to ramp up on google chat before they cut off XMPP).
Maybe as a work around one of the EU commissioners can bug your family and friends to include you in their group chats. Access to group chats have recently been added to the list of inalienable rights.
This is my instinct too. If the only thing keeping the family together is regulations, then what does that mean? Wouldn't they just all switch to WhatsApp or Signal?
> Following their designation, gatekeepers now have six months to comply with the full list of do's and don'ts under the DMA, offering more choice and more freedom to end users and business users of the gatekeepers' services.
The word on the street is that Apple will do it only in EU and will be serious about enforcing it. According to the rumours, Apple will check against location and verified EU iCloud account before allowing side loading.
>> Apple will check against location and verified EU iCloud account before allowing side loading.
I doubt this would be compliant. For example, Northern Irish users will be using a UK iCloud account due to their address of residence. However they are/can be EU citizens despite the UK no longer being within the EU. Unless DMA applies to residents rather than citizens of course.
I assume they have mistaken “iCloud account” for “Apple ID with associated payment method”. In order to use the App Store, you need payment details with a billing address. Apple uses this billing address to decide which region your Apple ID is in for the purposes of licensing, region locking, etc. If they were going to distinguish between EU and non-EU accounts, they would use this.
Also, in order to change regions, not only do you need to add a new payment method with a verified payment address in the new region, you also need to cancel all in-app subscriptions and then resubscribe after you have changed region. Assuming the app and subscription is available in the new region, of course.
I’m skeptical they’ll do this though. Allowing side loading is a sufficiently large change in strategy that it doesn’t really make much difference to Apple if they allow the EU to do it vs the whole world.
What does this mean for Youtube? For Whatsapp and iOS, the implications are known (other app stores and browsers, allowing interop between Whatsapp and other messengers, etc), but what will Youtube have to do to comply with the DMA?
> provide companies advertising on their platform with the tools and information necessary for advertisers and publishers to carry out their own independent verification of their advertisements hosted by the gatekeeper
It's about preventing abusive behavior towards creators/marketers on the platform, not just about users.
I know the intentions are positive here, but I can't help feeling like this is going to have unintended consequences that make services worse for the majority of us who do not live in the EU, like GDPR did.
We have a regulatory body that doesn't prioritize standardizing on a single type of electrical plug now driving digital standards for companies that operate globally.
>> unintended consequences that make services worse for the majority of us who do not live in the EU, like GDPR did.
Can you give an example? Things like Google Takeout and other services allow you to download all your data are a direct consequence of GDPR. Seems like a huge win to me. If your complaint is “cookie banners” your complaint if with website owners rather than any legislation.
The complaint is cookie banners. They litter the Web now as a direct result of GDPR. Website owners didn't just start obscuring their sites because it's fun. They make the Web worse for everyone in the world.
Yes, I know that technically such banners are not required under GDPR. I also know that even the webmasters at The European Commission (see the linked ec.europa.eu site) add cookie banners 7 years after the law was passed. It is not reasonable to expect other organizations to interpret the law more effectively than the EU itself.
And the EU is actively working on creating a new ePrivacy Regulation [0] that would explicitly tackle the explosion of cookie banners.
> Simpler rules on cookies: the cookie provision, which has resulted in an overload of consent requests for internet users, will be streamlined. The new rule will be more user-friendly as browser settings will provide an easy way to accept or refuse tracking cookies and other identifiers. The proposal also clarifies that no consent is needed for non-privacy intrusive cookies that improve internet experience, such as cookies to remember shopping-cart history or to count the number of website visitors.
I must have been blind to the banners for a number of years :-). In any case, the larger point stands: the EU created the cookie banner mess that makes the Web worse for everybody, whether or not we are EU citizens. It seems the only debate is whether they have dawdled 14 years before attempting to address the issue or "only" 5 years.
Spotify arguably would have qualified if they had included an "online music service" category alongside "online video service" (where YouTube was designated). The fact that this was left out is interesting.
DT is primarily a telecom, so already subject to a lot of regulation about carriage and so on. Not sure it would do anything if they were included; it’s not like they’re saying (or could say) “yeah, you can’t phone people who use O2 with this phone”.
IMO the most surprising omission is Telegram (presumably due to the market cap thing). I would have thought they’d be quite keen to bring _that_ into the net.
Looks like Telegram is private (so harder for observers to accurately value) and likely still would be well under the size cap (support for the notion that the size cap is there to exclude EU companies).
Huh, I thought they were based in Europe, but they now say that is dated: "The Telegram team had to leave Russia due to local IT regulations and has tried a number of locations as its base, including Berlin, London and Singapore."
Not for the Digital Markets Act, but the German clothing company Zalando is iirc large enough to qualify under the stipulations of the Digital Services Act (which is more focused on digital moderation if I'm not mistaken, rather than anti-monopolist behavior).
Last I checked, Zalando sued the CJEU because they were unhappy with the designation.
Zalando objects that for everybody else users were counted, while for them it was visitors (a much looser association, they argue). The decision will sharpen DSA's profile, one way or the other.
No, it is shameful that US allows such huge monopolies in the first place. These should not exist at all and should be broken up before becoming so huge.
Interesting list. The only European companies I recognize are car companies; Volkswagen, Fiat Chrysler, and Mercedes-Benz. The rest are all energy or mining companies, with the exception of Schwarz Gruppe which is apparently a retail chain? It's also surprising how many of the American companies are healthcare-related, and how the relative ordering changes to favor tech and oil companies when you sort by profit instead of revenue.
This list actually surprised me. The European companies on the list fall into 3 categories: commodities (e.g. petroleum or mining), utilities, and automakers.
They are viable options. I dont know about regulated, but them not being used is their problem. IE6 was king and then phoenix unseated them, followed by firefox. So people have options, them not using the other option is their issue
Europe's definition of monopoly is one that actually makes sense, unlike the US's bafflingly stupid version. You do not need over 50% to be a monopoly.
More like, no other financial and investment markets are as liquid and stable as America’s, which attracts the world’s innovators and investors. The US should not replicate the failure and incompetence at the helm of the EU and other major bureaucracies.
You missed the point. It doesn't matter where competition comes from, this whole campaign is about loosening the grip a handful of companies ("gatekeepers") have over de facto monopolies.
In short, this would benefit smaller players everywhere.
The EU is in a bind. Long ago it has outsourced its entire digital infrastructure to the US (opting to finesse internal combustion engines instead).
Nowadays the result is the complete dependence in what is increasingly an existential piece of technology on the unregulated cowboy regime that is charitably termed "big tech".
This rubs alot of people wrong in terms, e.g., of data privacy practices and olipolistic market power, hence these unprecedented regulations and measures.
Whether something meaningful will be achieved is questionable, but anybody trying to dismiss these signals doesn't understand the stresses that are building up in the digital domain.
i don't think that is relevant. every other country in the world except china and maybe russia has the same problem. the EU is the only one at least to be able to do something about it, and in the long term that will help other countries as well (as they now can just demand the same openness, which will allow local alternatives to at least have a chance)
Also, it being the official European Commission site, they comply properly with the GDPR, and if you do view the webpage with JavaScript enabled and choose only essential cookies, they do respect that correctly.
>[...]Alphabet, Microsoft and Samsung provided sufficiently justified arguments showing that these services do not qualify as gateways for the respective core platform services.
The mental gymnastics, corporate/lawyer double speak and lobbying efforts in those argumentations must have been absolutely insane.
Yes and no. Isn’t there an argument that Gmail and Outlook.com (combined with Microsoft 365/Exchange Online), while superficially interoperable, have enough market share that their actions make running other mail providers very difficult in practice?
> Isn’t there an argument that Gmail and Outlook.com (combined with Microsoft 365/Exchange Online), while superficially interoperable, have enough market share that their actions make running other mail providers very difficult in practice?
Yes, there is an argument to be made for that. I personally agree with that viewpoint. But that doesn’t mean arguing against it is “mental gymnastics”. It’s possible for reasonable people to disagree about things.
The "as gateways for the respective core platform services" is the important part here.
The linked page states in its very first sentence:
> The European Commission has today designated, for the first time, six gatekeepers - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft - under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
That was about Gmail and Outlook. One obvious distinction is that they're already federated services that interoperate with a massive ecosystem of third parties, so there's not much need for regulation to force that interoperability.
An interesting take. I’m not a Samsung user, but these days I get enough bug reports about issues specific to Samsung browser that I had to buy a device just to reproduce the random weird stuff that happens. The latest one had to do with Samsung browsers’ dark mode which has some strange algorithm to make every website dark.
I understand why - quite important on Samsungs to use dark mode and not just at night, as their OLED screens draw a less power displaying dark colours, giving improved battery life
The fact it has a proper dark mode that doesn't require sites to support it is one of it's best features IMO. It is a lifesaver when trying to get a small child to sleep.
I, too, like dark mode. But, I've found several instances that required the site to make modifications to support dark mode. Most recent example was a QR code rendered as <svg> with a transparent background. The parent container had a white background. Samsung made the parent background black but didn't invert the QR code color. So as a result the QR code was unusable.
These companies didn't even exist 100 years ago and most of the success they have had, are big innovations in their respective areas in last 20 years. Yet now they are designated as some sort of immortal "gatekeepers".
They're not designated as "immortal" gatekeepers. The commission can revise the list at any time, as market conditions change.
Every monopolist was once not a monopolist. Every monopolist came into existence at some point in the past and did not exist before then. So what? Should we abolish all antitrust law for this reason? It's a very strange criticism.
> Under the DMA, the European Commission can designate digital platforms as ‘gatekeepers' if they provide an important gateway between businesses and consumers in relation to core platform services.
Microsoft and Apple are in their late 40s, Amazon and Google are in their 20s, Facebook is 19 and ByteDance is a teenager with 11 years old, yet managed to be classified as gatekeepers.
I think no other company, with a young age, in any other domain but tech could ever qualify as a gatekeeper
I guess it's still in investigation, and being fair, it's not as popular a messaging application as it is in the USA where it would absolutely needs to be forced to open up. Just not as bad an issue in Europe I guess.