[Retric]

Beyond privacy concerns, it’s also going to open these and many other services up to an unending wave of SPAM.

So, I wouldn’t assume it’s great for end users without digging into the details. Don’t forget the last time they did privacy regulations they created an unending wave of click yes to accept cookies.

PS: Looking at rapid downvotes I see people disagree, but mandatory interoperability would presumably force them to accept SpamNetwork101, SpamNetwork102 … etc.

[hetspookjee]

Luckily we’re kept totally safe by our benevolent overlords. Except for our good friend Jeff Bezos that got hacked through a WhatsApp image. Or the overt spam that any publicly posted business WhatsApp number receives.

WhatsApp replaced SMS as a free alternative with media. Sms is just a protocol. It is not necessary that a replacement is walled garden, especially not under the sole guise of spam protection - something that is being done very poorly anyway.

[Retric]

iMessage and WhatsApp are just a tiny selection of social networks.

Depending in the specifics everything from Yahoo! Messenger to MMO chat either needs to get shut down or made interoperable.

[hetspookjee]

I can only expect the matter to be applied to large applications in some sense. Hopefully they learned a lesson or two from GDPR, and tangentially I don’t expect this roll out to happen anytime soon.

[Retric]

That’s possible, but they don’t have a great track record.

[elliekelly]

And this removes agency for those of us who try to keep as much of our data out of Google’s hands as possible. If they’re going to force interoperability it needs to come with restrictions about what they can collect about people who haven’t consented.

[zaarn]

DMA has that (Google can't use Data obtained from Interop in anything but the market they sourced it from, ie E-Mail Data stays in the E-Mail sector) and the GDPR covers the rest (without consent, they are restricted to only processing necessary data to begin with).

[rewq4321]

Why? If your messaging app doesn't have the ability to block stranger requests, why are you still using it?

And even if you for some reason don't want to restrict your requests, you'll probably still be fine - Gmail handles protects me from spam pretty well.

[naoqj]

That's like saying that you don't need a spam filter for email because you can press the "mark as spam" button a hundred times a day.

[tinus_hn]

Good luck blocking a person that pretends to be 10000 different strangers.

[thinkmassive]

“block stranger requests” could mean using your contacts as an allowlist

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

This. I am somewhat surprised allowlist isn't a thing. I get that there are times, you want to be open to the world ( say you are actually waiting for an interview call ), but this would easily solve a good portion of the issues. Am I missing something?

[Retric]

My concern is how broad the definition of social network. Tinder for example requires people to be open to new massages and simply doesn’t work as a whitelist.

Is say MMO chat a social network?

[tinus_hn]

As long as you hardly ever meet new people, of course. Obviously this is not a trivial problem to solve, otherwise spam wouldn’t exist.

[thinkmassive]

If you meet a new person and want to exchange messages, there's not a huge difference between adding them in your messaging app and adding them to your contact list.

Using this model it would better to have multiple lists though, or at least tagging within the general contacts list, so tag-based lists could be allowed by certain apps (to keep business and personal messaging separate for example).

[aaomidi]

Facebook messengers chat requests has basically solved this problem.

New person goes to chat requests, they communicate through another channel they've sent you a message, you go open the graveyard of chat requests and accept theirs.

[Jcowell]

Exactly this. Exactly if the common protocol is SMS/MMS. So what if I can block people on one platform they can just now hop to another.

[em-bee]

or they can create a new account on the same platform. but that's why i don't like platforms that force me to use my phonenumber as a public ID. because already today, if i block you on whatsapp you can find me on signal because my number is the same. so really the interoperability doesn't make it worse than it already is.

[KoftaBob]

Isn't this generally taken care of by only allowing messages from numbers that are in your contact list?

[Retric]

That approach doesn’t work for something like Tinder. It’s also kind of a pain rather than just letting everyone message you on a platform without SPAM.