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EU Technology

Should New Tech Rules Apply To Microsoft's Bing, Apple's iMessage, EU Asks (reuters.com) 38

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
EU antitrust regulators are asking Microsoft's users and rivals whether Bing should comply with new tough tech rules and also whether that should be the case for Apple's iMessage, Reuters reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The European Commission in September opened investigations to assess whether Microsoft's Bing, Edge and Microsoft Advertising as well as Apple's iMessage should be subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The probes came after the companies contested the EU competition regulator labelling these services as core platform services under the DMA.

The DMA requires Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet's Google, Amazon, Meta Platforms and ByteDance to allow for third-party apps or app stores on their platforms and to make it easier for users to switch from default apps to rivals, among other obligations. The Commission sent out questionnaires earlier this month, asking rivals and users to rate the importance of Microsoft's three services and Apple's iMessage versus competing services.
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Should New Tech Rules Apply To Microsoft's Bing, Apple's iMessage, EU Asks More

Should New Tech Rules Apply To Microsoft's Bing, Apple's iMessage, EU Asks

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  • Be careful what you wish for.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Shakrai ( 717556 ) on Monday October 09, 2023 @12:55PM (#63912283) Journal

    Opening up iMessage to third party apps will require either:
    1) Doing away with end-to-end encryption.
    2) Reducing the security of the private key used for iMessage end-to-end encryption by making it available to third party apps.
    3) The creation of an API to allow a third party app to relay messages through the Secure Enclave.

    #3 is probably the best, but would not make iMessage available on non-Apple devices, which I believe is part of what the EU wants to see happen. It would also reduce the security of received messages that are now stored in plaintext within a third party app with a different privacy policy and security approach.

    • Re: Be careful what you wish for.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by FictionPimp ( 712802 ) on Monday October 09, 2023 @01:00PM (#63912297) Homepage

      And what is lost by not having imessage open? There are hundreds of text based chat options each with millions if not billions of users. This isnâ(TM)t stifling any competition.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Shakrai ( 717556 )

        I don't get it either. If the EU is angry you can't change the default SMS app on IOS they might have a point. Apple could fix that via #3 above. If they're angry iMessage isn't open I don't understand that at all. Is there a huge demand for people not on Apple products to use iMessage instead of Signal, WhatsApp, etc.? iMessage is my preference when talking to other Apple people but I got other messaging apps on my iPhone for other use cases. As a side note, I'm reasonably sure Android has the same r

      • And what is lost by not having imessage open? There are hundreds of text based chat options each with millions if not billions of users. This isnâ(TM)t stifling any competition.

        Precisely!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        And what is lost by not having imessage open? There are hundreds of text based chat options each with millions if not billions of users. This isnâ(TM)t stifling any competition.

        What will be lost?

        The blessed peace of being free from iUsers.

    • #4 Adopt RCS. It's a protocol that already exists, fully supports end to end encryption, and is full interoperable between devices already. Cheap to implement. iMessage could be depreciated or reserved for native iOS to iOS communication only, and failover to secure messaging RCS rather than 30 year old SMS when it's not a iOS device. So long as the app works with other message services, like RCS, it should bit the bill.

      DMA already had them adopt USB-C finally. Embrace what works.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Shakrai ( 717556 )

        Nobody other than techies and Google gives a shit about RCS.

        If the cellular carriers had implemented it in a sane way Apple might have hopped on but I don't see them going in on a platform controlled by Google. And that's how RCS is currently implemented, you can either rely on your carrier's half-baked implementation, that comes with long list of asterisks (and no E2E), or you can hop on Google's implementation. I can't see Apple doing that under any circumstance.

        RCS offers me very little. More reliab

      • #4 Adopt RCS. It's a protocol that already exists, fully supports end to end encryption, and is full interoperable between devices already. Cheap to implement. iMessage could be depreciated or reserved for native iOS to iOS communication only, and failover to secure messaging RCS rather than 30 year old SMS when it's not a iOS device. So long as the app works with other message services, like RCS, it should bit the bill.

        DMA already had them adopt USB-C finally. Embrace what works.

        Found the Google Shill.

      • #4 Adopt RCS. It's a protocol that already exists, fully supports end to end encryption, and is full interoperable between devices already. Cheap to implement.

        1. RCS is not end-to-end encrypted. Google Messages is E2EE because Google built E2EE on top of RCS. Their implementation is proprietary and didn't even support group chats until earlier this year. Google manages public keys. Google distributes keys. Anyone wanting to talk to Google's users via an E2EE chat would need to go through Google and follow Google's lead.

        2. RCS is not "full interoperable [sic] between devices already", at least not how you mean. Google has achieved "interoperability" by making deal

    • There's no reason Option 3 couldn't enable iMessage interoperability with non-Apple devices. REST APIs work from any platform.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      This is FUD. There is nothing about opening up iMessage that would require the removal of E2E encryption. Keys can be stored in the Android secure storage system that keeps bank details and other E2E keys safe.

      On iOS each app will generate its own keys, not recycle the iMessage ones. If Apple didn't completely botch the implementation of iMessage, that should be possible with an E2E system. If they require the use of the one true key, iMessage's security is badly broken.

  • Encryption (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The DMA requires Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet's Google, Amazon, Meta Platforms and ByteDance to allow for third-party apps or app stores on their platforms and to make it easier for users to switch from default apps to rivals, among other obligations.

    So long as those "other obligations" require legally mandated backdoors and the full removal of end to end encryption, then no, absolutely not.

    Fix your laws EU!
    Everything else in the DMA related to competition is perfectly reasonable. Outlawing encryption is not.
    This one detail is why the entire law has to be rejected until fixed.

  • Absolutely mind blowing how anyone over there thought cookie disclaimers on every site should be ever a damn thing. I'd rather the 10 people in this Universe who care not be able to use the internet than the rest of us to suffer from some dumb ass pencil pusher's idea of consumer safety. Same goes for any overreach from EU government. Same crap happens in USA. California or New York makes a decision, and all other states/corporations just fall in line. Internet wasn't supposed to be that way. It is supposed

  • It's about time some authority started cracking down on these walled gardens.

  • It doesn't matter how rich they are! They aren't allowed to keep themselves immune to rules! Just because politicians do it doesn't make it right. Happy Friday the 13th...

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