Against the backdrop of growing market concentration, disregard for applicable data protection rules, and regularly recurring data scandals involving large companies, the call for an interoperability obligation for messenger services is becoming louder, and is understandable at first glance. But does such an obligation really solve the problems addressed above, and how would such an obligation have to be designed in regulatory and technical terms? In this discussion paper, the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (vzbv) examines and questions the interoperability of messenger services with respect to the interests of users, possible effects on competition and data protection.
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