[supermatt]

They could implement EXACTLY the same security requirements via a public-facing API as they do via their existing "private" API. How would that be trading security? lack of obscurity?

Clearly they cant be expected to integrate with any 3rd party, so the expectation is that 3rd parties would integrate with them.

You can do this at present via their private API (as per pidgin, etc) - but thats against their terms of service. It seems this law will prevent them imposing such terms.

[egberts1]

Karma be damned. Uncomfortable truth must be made cognizant.

But they won’t do it exactly given their widely disparate privacy and security model. Unless some kind of an instant messaging standard surfaces.

As is, it would become another cat-n-mouse security theater in leveraging one IM provider’s API weakness to gain additional insight of a subscriber using another IM provider’s API.