WhatsApp is once again testing third-party chats support to adhere to EU ruling.
WhatsApp appears to be actively preparing to facilitate support for third-party chat on its platform, thus complying with the requirements of the European Union’s Digital Market Act (DMA). This obliges large technology companies, called “gatekeepers”, to create interoperability and enable communication between different applications.
Simply put, this feature would make it easier for users of apps like Telegram or Signal to send messages to WhatsApp users, eliminating the requirement for the sender to have a WhatsApp account and vice versa.
This feature was first spotted last year and has now been spotted in the latest WhatsApp beta on iOS 24.10.72, as reported by WhatsApp feature tracker WABetaInfo. According to the publication, WhatsApp is actively developing a new section that will showcase incoming messages from all third-party chats.
The feature, called Interoperability, is said to be optional, and users will likely have to “maintain control of this feature as they have to manually enable the Interoperability service,” WABetaInfo said.
It is not clear when we can expect WhatsApp to bring this feature to the masses, if at all, as it is possible that this would only be rolled out to users residing in EU countries. However, given WhatsApp’s March 2024 deadline for rolling out this feature, it’s possible that it could roll out earlier than anticipated.
In related news, WhatsApp has rolled out the ability to embed polls into WhatsApp channels, and the Meta-owned app is also getting the ability to send voice notes and make up to 16 people admins. In addition, users can now even share a channel update as a status.
