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> 7.5.1. Partner User Location. Any Partner Users that Partner Enlists or provides access to the Interoperable Messaging Services must be located and remain in
by PandaBear123 3y ago
> 7.5.1. Partner User Location. Any Partner Users that Partner Enlists or provides access to the Interoperable Messaging Services must be located and remain in the EEA. Without limiting Section 11 (Warranties), Partner represents and warrants that it will only (i) Enlist and (ii) enable access to the Interoperable Messaging Services by Partner Users that Partner independently validates are located in the European Economic Area, (i.e., a Partner User must be present within the European Economic Area within any consecutive sixty (60) calendar day period). If WhatsApp detects or otherwise has reasonable grounds to suspect a Partner User Enlisted to receive the Interoperable Messaging Services is not located in the European Economic Area or is no longer located in the EEA, WhatsApp reserves the right to immediately suspend such Partner User(s) from accessing the Interoperable Messaging Services, and if multiple violations are detected, Partner shall remedy Partner's location validation procedures to ensure compliance with the terms of this Agreement.
Looks like interoperability is geo-fenced to Europe only.
- pmontra 3y agoSo what happens when a EU citizens go on vacation in the US? No more sharing messages between platforms until they go back home?
- kolmogorov 3y agothis reads as if they can for 60 consecutive days and on day 61 they'd be disconnected from interoperable messaging
- jraph 3y agoAnd that they are reluctantly complying in bad faith in the most hostile way they found. Is this going to fly? Where do these 60 days come from for instance? How is it any useful and who is going to want to implement such interoperability under such terms? This reads like a lot of words to say Fuck You Europe to me. Well, feelings are mutual, at least we are on the same page, them and me.
- concinds 3y agoYou may dislike it, but EU law only applies in the EU; it sounds like full compliance to me, not "bad faith" compliance. Messaging-interoperability is the one aspect of the DMA I don't support. These apps are free to download; and if you care about security (and use Signal) you'll want to avoid cross-service messaging anyway.
- southerntofu 3y agoEU law only applies in the EU, but an actor who doesn't respect EU law outside of the EU may be refused business in the EU. I agree the precedents are not strong to propose an outright ban (eg. Coca Cola murdering trade unionists and forest defenders in South America) but it would perfectly make sense on paper.
- catlikesshrimp 3y agoDigital services are global. Regulation can be different from physical good regulation. Heck, in the US even taxes are global Edit: For US citizens
- concinds 3y agoActually I forgot about iMessage. It’s the only service where forced interoperability makes sense (because you can’t “just download an app”, you’re locked out of the service unless you buy an Apple device), and yet it was excluded. Hopefully the EU changes the law so it applies to iMessage.
- justoreply 3y agoin Europe very few people are using iMessage, most of them are using Whatsapp
- olivermuty 3y agoSouthern europe yes, further north its almost no WA and a ton of iMessage
- lxgr 3y agoThis is so absurd. I think the previously often raised objections to interoperability were technically and economically mostly sound (federation is much harder to achieve in a secure way, thinking of key distribution, identifier verification etc.). Now overcoming all of these obstacles and then going the extra mile to implement geofencing (which also has tons of edge cases!) completely undoes that argument.
- arp242 3y agoI don't really see why WhatsApp would care, because once you have developed the interoperability, audited the apps, and done all that, it doesn't really cost WhatsApp anything if a user is using that app. They lose no profit, doesn't cost their servers any more than their own client would, etc. WhatsApp makes their money from the business clients/apps (which aren't covered under this, which I think is fine by the way). So why care where a user is on the planet? I just don't see the business reason for this. Maybe I'm missing something?
- akdev1l 3y agoThe WhatsApp client does give Meta a window of opportunity to get data from users. The data is otherwise E2E encrypted but when you see a link preview on WhatsApp Meta knows that.