The latest WhatsApp beta for Android contains a new screen called “Third-party chats”, which means the Meta-owned encrypted messenger is working to bring cross-platform messages to the platform.
According to the details, WhatsApp is working on adding Third-party chat support to comply with the European Union’s Digital Market Acts (DMA). In July, the EU announced that seven big tech giants – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, TikTok, Meta, Microsoft, and Samsung – must comply with EU’s new digital market rules.
One of the key tenets of the DMA states that mentioned tech firms that prohibited from favoring their own services and must allow interoperability with third parties. Last week, the EU Commission designated key apps to the rules, which included Meta-owned WhatsApp and Messenger.
WABetaInfo, a WhatsApp tracker, has found the interoperability feature in WhatsApp beta for Android version 2.23.19.8, which means that Meta-owned encrypted messenger has already started working on adding Third-party chat support to the app.
This means WhatsApp users will soon be able to send messages to Third-party / other messaging applications like Signal or Telegram. While the company has not released an actual date for the feature to be launched globally, it is expected to come out by March 2024.
Read more: WhatsApp is Testing a Completely New Design for Android and iOS.
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