• WhatsApp is reportedly looking to integrate cross-platform messaging functionality.
• The non-clickable feature was spotted in an Android beta update over the weekend.
• The feature may be added as a response to pressure from regulators in the EU.

WhatsApp may soon be getting cross-platform functionality.

This after WABetaInfo spotted the new feature as part of the Android beta update (2.23.19.8). The discovery was made in a screen called Third-party chats, however, it is not accessible or functional at this stage.

As The Verge points out, this could be the first step that Meta takes in making the messaging platform’s encrypted chats accessible via other platforms.

The feature’s impending arrival is more than likely the result of European Union’s far-reaching Digital Markets Act (DMA), which recently outlined which technology companies are deemed gatekeepers.

In the context of the DMA, gatekeepers are, “Platforms that have a significant impact on the internal market, serve as an important gateway for business users to reach their end users, and which enjoy, or will foreseeably enjoy, an entrenched and durable position.”

“The Digital Markets Act aims at preventing gatekeepers from imposing unfair conditions on businesses and end users and at ensuring the openness of important digital services,” the EU’s Q&A on the DMA explains.

Meta was also defined as a gatekeeper, and as such, now needs to ensure that there is a high degree of interoperability for the platforms it owns, which includes WhatsApp.

“Some basic functionalities have to be made available for interoperability within six months from the designation of the gatekeeper, (e.g. text messages between two individual users), more complex ones will be introduced gradually and have to be made available after two years (e.g. group text messages) or four years (e.g. audio and video calls between two individual users or groups of end users) from the moment of designation,” the EU highlights.

“The DMA provisions on the interoperability obligation also ensure that the levels of service integrity, security and encryption offered by the gatekeeper shall and will not be reduced,” it adds.

As such, we could see many more platforms look to ensure interoperability moving forward, with Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, and Microsoft also named as gatekeepers.

[Image – Photo by Amin Moshrefi on Unsplash]