Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, Nov. 8 (Xinhua)-- Google and the European Telecom Group have urged EU regulators to designate Apple's iMessage as a "core" service, which will force iMessage to communicate with rival chat services, according to the Financial Times.

In a letter to the European Commission, signatories, including Google and some of Europe's largest telecom operators, claimed that Apple's iMessage services met the standards of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and should therefore be bound by the regulation to "benefit consumers and businesses in Europe".

Google, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Telef ó nica and France Telecom said in the letter that the "basic nature" of iMessage as an "important gateway between business users and their customers" is undoubtedly the reason to make it a "gatekeeper".

Apple declined to comment on the report, but referred to a previous statement saying: "iMessage is a great service and Apple users love it because it provides an easy way to communicate with friends and family, while providing industry-leading privacy and security. Today, consumers can use multiple messaging applications, and often use multiple at the same time, reflecting how easy it is for them to switch between them. IMessage is designed and promoted for individual consumer communications, and we look forward to explaining to the committee why iMessage is outside the scope of DMA. "

CTOnews.com noted that Apple objected to EU regulators marking it as a "gatekeeper" in September, before the EU released a list of the first DMA-regulated services. The bill introduces new rules that apply to services considered to be core platforms and forces them to open their services and platforms to other companies and developers. For example, Apple may be forced to allow third-party companies and competitors' apps, such as Meta's WhatsApp, to integrate directly with iMessage.

However, Apple argues that iMessage does not meet the number of users required to apply the DMA rules, so it should not be forced to comply with it. "because of its small scale relative to other messaging services, iMessage does not constitute an important channel for business users in the EU to access end users."

Analysts estimate that iMessage has as many as 1 billion users worldwide, but Apple has not released any official data about the service for years. Whether iMessage will be included in the EU's initial list of gatekeepers will depend on how it defines its own market.

The EU investigation into iMessage is still ongoing and the European Commission will make a decision by February next year.

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