WhatsApp Tests New Feature Allowing Messages to Competing Platforms

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The popular messaging app WhatsApp has started offering a new tab in its test version that allows users to send messages to competing platforms such as Telegram, Signal, and Messenger, which is owned by Meta.

According to WABetaInfo, a website specialized in tracking WhatsApp updates, the service has been available since Sunday (10).

When contacted by phone and email, Meta, the company that owns WhatsApp, did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication. However, WABetaInfo has published images of the new feature, which is housed in a separate tab within the app.

This integration with competing apps is one of the new requirements of the European Union’s new regulatory framework against anti-competitive practices on the internet—the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

WhatsApp is one of the 19 apps from the six major tech companies listed by the European Union as targets for the new regulation. The messaging app has over 100 million users in Europe, according to the web monitoring platform SimilarWeb.

As part of the new regulations, WhatsApp has six months to comply, with the countdown having started on August 25th.

The new messaging tab for other apps is not yet functional for testers, according to WABetaInfo. Users can only view it, which indicates that Meta is still working on the feature.

WABetaInfo also claims that the end-to-end encryption provided by WhatsApp will still apply to these new communication channels. It is not yet clear if this feature will be available outside of Europe, where there are no regulations pushing in that direction.

In the current model, users have to download the messaging app of the person they want to communicate with. For example, if fictional character João uses only Telegram, you need to download that messenger to send messages to João.

This integration would allow users to contact João on Telegram directly from WhatsApp. If all messaging apps followed this logic, users could have only their preferred technology on their devices.

According to the new European regulatory framework, users will have the option to choose whether they want to keep their app integrated with other platforms or not. However, since the technology is still in its early stages of development, it is not possible to anticipate how this will work.

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