Since fall 2025, WhatsApp has opened up interoperability with third-party messaging services, as required by the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA). The DMA's goal is to curb the market power of "gatekeeper" tech giants — Apple, Google, Meta, and the like — by promoting fair competition and giving consumers greater freedom to choose the communication services they use. We support that goal.
But agreeing with the goal doesn't mean agreeing with every way of getting there. After careful evaluation, we've decided not to implement interoperability with WhatsApp for now. Here's why.
1.The technical reality: it's not that we don't want to — it's that doing it well is genuinely hard
WhatsApp currently only supports interoperability for one-on-one chats. How group chats, voice calls, and video calls would work remains unclear. More importantly, the protocol is defined unilaterally by WhatsApp — meaning any third-party provider connecting to it is effectively embedding a lightweight version of Meta's chat app into their own product architecture. The development resources this requires are disproportionate to the benefit. And the differences in feature sets across messaging apps mean that truly seamless interoperability has a built-in ceiling, no matter how it's implemented.
2.Privacy is a hard constraint, not a negotiable one
Interoperability requires both sides to converge on a "lowest common denominator" of compatibility — and that denominator tends to be whichever side has weaker privacy protections. For example, Comcube has built-in screenshot and screen-recording protection across regular chats, while WhatsApp only applies similar restrictions to "View Once" messages, leaving everyday chats completely unprotected. Bridging this kind of fundamental design difference would necessarily mean compromising someone's privacy standard.
There's also a more practical issue: once data flows to WhatsApp, we have no way to verify how it's subsequently handled, since WhatsApp isn't open source. That's a level of uncertainty we're not willing to accept.
3.Interoperability could also work against ecosystem diversity
The DMA's goal is to break up monopolies and boost competition — but does interoperability actually deliver on that? We're not so sure. In fact, it might do the opposite. Think about it: if people can message Comcube users directly through WhatsApp without ever downloading Comcube, what's left to motivate them to install a whole new app? Over time, that could end up making the biggest platforms even more dominant, not less.
4.The business model reality
Comcube isn't funded by advertising, doesn't monetize user data, and doesn't rely on donations. Our revenue comes entirely from app purchases. If interoperability leads to fewer downloads and less active usage, it would erode the very funding source that sustains our ongoing development — including, ironically, any future work to build and maintain an interoperability bridge in the first place.
In summary
Taking all of this into account, we won't be implementing interoperability with WhatsApp at this time. Privacy and security are foundational to Comcube, and this isn't a place where we're willing to compromise.
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