> that means no entire market reach

Globally iOS is about 15% to 20% max. So the onus would be on Apple to integrate RCS into iMessage in order to reach the majority of the market.

I can't see RCS succeeding anyway but it won't be because of Apple. It'll be because it took 11 years to come to market and even my dentist uses WhatsApp now.

Onus? Like there are rules? Or moral obligations on the part of multinationals?

Apple's only responsibility is to itself, and its shareholders.

Yes, there are likely to be contract terms requiring anything with a connection to support RCS.

This will be driven by carriers turning off legacy SMS and MMS servers the same way they turned off 2G GSM.

MMS was already discontinued a few years ago. SMS still has some relevancy for business.

It was? Or do you mean specifically 2G-transported MMS messages? I have flip-phone-using family that still MMS me pictures.

> MMS was already discontinued a few years ago.

Where? In Canada I use MMS every day.

Yes, there is a moral obligation to do the right thing.

Switching to RCS from iMessage would facilitate more warantless wiretapping, and make it easier for carriers to rent seek by charging per message.

It would also probably regress iOS Apple’s customers have already paid money for.

How is any of that morally “the right thing”?

RCS wouldn't replace iMessage, it would be a new layer of fallback between iMessage and the current MMS/SMS fallback, so the security situation wouldn't change.

RCS uses your data plan[0], so it's unlikely carriers will bother charging per message. I already have unlimited international SMS and MMS on my plan anyway. Charging per message on RCS would just mean the protocol would fail and push people to the multitude of other options.

[0]https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/19/17252486/google-android-m...

Who says it's right or wrong for x to be integrated into your product? Should they do it if it compromises iMessage encryption? It's not as if there are no WhatsApps/Telegrams etc people can use as an alternative if they don't like the options.

Also, ethics provides specific practices and actions that we can take in order to ‘do the right thing’.

The fact that some corporations act ruthlessly and mercenary with regards to human rights and individual suffering (like Facebook in the recent data scandal), does not abrogate our collective and individual obligation to a higher ethical practice.

How would one determine what such an obligation is any more than one would determine a religious obligation to do the right thing? As much as we wish there was, and as much as we think society would be better if there was, I don't think they exist and the closest thing to them we can emulate, that of a social obligation, has a number of flaws (since social obligations are enforced by social backlash and advertising strongly influences social backlash, and social backlash can often be counter productive).

Wow. You seem to be arguing that because it might be hard to construct an ethical and moral framework that works for society, we should all give up and just default to being purely self interested sociopaths? Yes, building a justice system, laws, social norms and culture is hard. That's why civilization has been working on it for thousands of years, and we are still figuring it out. Multinational corporations are comparatively new, so we don't know how to treat them as well as you know how to treat your next door neighbor or in laws. That doesn't mean we should give up on figuring it out.

>You seem to be arguing that because it might be hard to construct an ethical and moral framework that works for society, we should all give up and just default to being purely self interested sociopaths?

I'm arguing that any such constructed framework is merely fiction. Only what we actually enforce matters, but that there is a distinction between a moral obligation enforced by some concept of being moral or immoral and social obligations enforced by social reaction. I then point out that social obligations are flawed (not that we shouldn't use them, but we should be aware of their flaw).

>Yes, building a justice system, laws, social norms and culture is hard.

And these are different than moral obligations. Laws are enforced by the state. Social norms and culture are enforced by different social reactions, anything from 'tut tutting' and social disapproval to outright violence.

>That doesn't mean we should give up on figuring it out.

I'm not saying we should give up. I'm saying that trying to use moral obligations as the tool is no more useful than using religious obligations are (outside of a theocracy, though in that case religious and legal obligations co-mingle). I'm saying we should use social and legal obligations instead.

Social and legal obligations often originate from ethical frameworks. For example, human rights were initially a purely ethical concept which most white people at that time thought to be ridiculous. And now it is a social and legal obligation in all Western countries to treat every human equally, regardless of skin color or religion.

So by abandoning ethics you are actually cutting off a source for improvements of our social and legal norms.

I'd also would like to point out that it doesn't follow from being constructed that something is 'merely fiction'. Everything in humanities is constructed (and some would even argue that everything in science is constructed). The question is: does it impact our lives? And ethical reasoning obviously does it.

What the right thing is depends on who you ask.

Implementing arbitrary standards is not "the right thing". Especially failed standards such as RCS.

Apple has implented a solution with iMessage, albeit a proprietary one only for iOS communications.

If Google prioritized the privacy of users thet would build a similar product as the default Android messaging service, hopefully as an open platform.

I have been very reluctant to switch to Android for precisely this reason. It represents a lack of concern for user privacy.

It is easy is to send an insecure message via iMessage. When the app will fallback to SMS, there isn't any clear indication that this is less secure. Sure you get the green vs blue bubbles, but security isn't exactly pointed out.

Sure it's not perfect. The point is a default that respects and enforces privacy. It is night and day from Android.

I wish Apple would open the protocol.

SMS fallback can be easily disabled.

And secure chat applications can be easily installed. The whole kerfuffle here is about defaults.

I'd say signal is already a better imessage. The use of phone numbers for linking contacts isn't great; but it's workable as a "better sms". And I prefer it to relying on solo'ed Google contacts.

I still want something that federated, secure(able) and easy to self-host. But I really don't see the need for another iMessage.

The need is for defaults. I want everyone using end to end encryption by default. If Signal became the default, great.

As long as imessage isn't generally available, it isn't a viable "default".

It's funny how the people here are sort of flocking to the alternative: having regulated privacy guarantees.

Of course Google is only implementing RCS here. That would be the agreed (with governments & telcos) standard, the result of regulation. Needless to say, it totally exposes everything to government, and to telcos, and to "interoperability providers" (which Google would be). It is strictly worse than Google when it comes to privacy. I think it includes more than just their chat messages, it seems to include things where you'd be like "why does this need to be part of chat ?" like location.

And it comes with a little something for telcos that I doubt anyone here will like : per-message billing. On the plus side: it will work without a data subscription (I think). On the minus side: per-message billing, with or without data subscription.

So the net effect is that people are being deceived - by amnesty no less - into pressuring Google and governments to expose more of their private information to more parties.

Unfortunately what this does mean is that Google is now caving to government demands - full exposure of everyone's information all the time, without any reason or oversight. Not just to the government, but because the government is also incompetent and can't be bothered to actually store these or make them searchable, they demand you also give all telcos access to it (who will then store it and make it accessible to government agents), and we all know most of those telcos will outsource actually doing this, because they're government monopolies.

> like location

Sharing current location with contacts is a pretty basic feature.

When asking for it, sure. When not ... not so much.

Where "contacts" that are truly interested in this "basic feature" consist of Google, Verizon and 3 letter agencies. Sign me out, thank you very much.

Google (who's software is running your phone) and your operator (who is constantly triangulating you to know where to broadcast the radio signal) already know exactly where you are.

* Google doesn't run software on my phone, thank you very much.

* At the time I was using Android, they were using a plethora of dark patterns to force me to continuously share my location with the "Google Maps" application, even if not in use. Indicating that they weren't just slurping the location info via Android. Most likely because of legal concerns: there are plenty of alternatives to the "Google Maps" application, there are only 2 widely adopted mobile OSes; the spectre of anti-monopoly action looms large.

* There are legal arguments to be made to prevent my operator from profiting from my location information.

> Commercial privacy of location information in the United States

> The U.S. does limit commercial use of location information under the (US) Telecommunications Act, at 47 CFR §222. The Telecommunications Act, at 47 CFR §222(f), requires consent from the subscriber, and prohibits telecommunication common carriers from accessing location information for purposes other than system operation without consent of the customer.[28] Businesses such as LocationSmart, which provide a tracking service based on subscriber information, require mobile users' consent prior to tracking.[29]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking#United_S...

* Great! Then you also don't have to worry about RCS. What's the problem?

* Right, my point. Google knows where you are.

* "customer consent" could that not just be a buried paragraph in the contract you signed to get the plan?

A basic feature which I used maybe 5 times in all my life, more to check how it works than because of a real need. So, not so basic and maybe not even an advanced one. How about "dangerous"?

There have been ways to tell friends where we are since forever, no need to let Google know. My GPS is turned off, I could buy a phone without it.

Just because the feature isn't valuable for your personal use case doesn't mean it isn't valuable. I share my location several times a week. It's especially useful in areas where street addresses don't follow a logical order (or are nonexistent altogether).

I want to be able to share my location with Google so that they can share it with one of my contacts. I then want Google to discard that information. I don't want them to share it with other parties unless I consent specifically to each instance. My consent should be informed (a lot of problems would be solved if we just held businesses to higher standards in terms of disclosing their business practices).

I'm even OK with certain exceptions that are consistent with principles that Western civilization is built on. For example if Google retains that information for a period of time solely for the purpose of complying with a lawful search by the police, for which a warrant was obtained based on a reasonable and specific suspicion, I'm OK with that.

We don't need to throw the baby out with the bath water.

When $746 billion of market capitalization critically depend on Google carefully recording your location information every second in the day and using it to increase advertisement revenue, it is somewhat naive to expect the Google will comply with common ethical sense out of the good of their hearts.

On the flip side, if communication with your contacts is encrypted end to end [possibly with law enforcement agencies with a warrant having access to decryption keys], then no matter how much monetary incentive Google has to violate your privacy, they can't.

How about we build systems that keep creepy stalkers at bay by design? What happened with "can-do" attitude in the hacker-sphere?

Can-do attitude includes making things that were otherwise annoying frictionless and easy through technology.

The feature being discussed here is literally the ability to manually press a button to send your location to your contact. With the new Android permission model you can even block the app from reading your permissions when not using it.

[In depth answer]

I dug up the RCS5.1 spec [0]. RCS location is not a benign feature where a user is sharing its location every once in a while by pressing a button. RCS location appears to be continuously broadcasted on unsecured channels, open to third party middle men, for example Google, Verizon or three letter agencies. Note the last bullet point, "Geolocation". Perhaps I'm reading this wrong, and this is not yet another veiled attempt at commercial surveillance. Please educate me.

From Section 3.7, Social Presence Information:

===

In the EAB, the contact information is extended with social presence information and foresees the following attributes:

* Availability, indicates the user’s (un)willingness to communicate,

[snip]

* Geolocation, depicts the user location

[snip]

Once User A has accepted User B as an RCS authorized contact, User B will be able to see the geolocation information of User A (displayed with a text or a map, or both of them) and all updates of that information.

===

[0] https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/wp-content/uploads/2013/...

The section you have listed is about "you have set a geolocation already, control access to who can see it".

Frankly there is no way that Google's RCS app streams your location to any endpoint without an explicit opt in in the app. I'll eat my hat if I'm wrong.

User selects to share location with 1 person in the world, and maybe even forgets about it because the feature is such low value [for the user] anyways. Google [and Verizon, and whomever else is in the middle] gets to snoop on user location forever at whatever precision they want, because "it's in the spec". Looks like a dark pattern for tricking everybody to share the location with Google, enabling corporate 24/7 mass surveillance.

Shameful.

Google has many choices: don't implement clear-text geolocation presence, don't implement RCS, speak up in the standards committee, communicate the implication to Google users, etc. Google chose to silently use a dark pattern to enable 24/7 location snooping.

Shameful.

You are literally looking at what the spec could allow a compliant client to do and then assuming that Google will make an app that uses dark patterns to trick users into doing them when they don't want to (and when it also provides no real value to Google compared to the data collection they can already do)

This is the core dark pattern of BigTech:

"Share with your friends" means "Share with your friends, and we'll snoop/aggregate everything that's ever shared by anyone using our platform in perpetuity and use it to subvert your will, haha 'private communication' is so XX century".

RCS is yet another excuse to implement this dark pattern, with explicit provisions to include unencrypted 24/7 geolocation information in it. Google just rehauled their Android messaging strategy around RCS. They deserve to be called out on it.

PS. You claimed "The feature being discussed here is literally the ability to manually press a button to send your location to your contact." Until you take that back as factually false [it's continuously sending, not gated by a button press per send], we're done here.

A. The ability to manually press a button to send your location to your contact

B. The ability to manually press a button to send your location to your contact without man-in-the-middle snooping.

All I'm saying is that B is better than A, for me personally and for our society at large.

Any idea why they’d even bother implementing the interface, given it appears to be a step backwards compared to current options that customers have?

They did have a choice to adopt it themselves.

> Any idea why they’d even bother implementing the interface, given it appears to be a step backwards compared to current options that customers have?

It's only a "step backwards" if you for some reason don't consider decentralized, standardized protocols implementable by anyone superior to centralized, closed-source walled-garden services.

"Anyone can implement a client" isn't the strongest argument when that's also true for most chat services as well. It's nice that the protocol is out in the open but it's effectively a service provided by cell providers and locked to them.

RCS could have been amazing as a general-purpose protocol for short datagrams that could be sent/received in areas where you can't get a data connection. It would effectively enable every chat app to work when the network is under load but carriers opted for the walled garden.

Or if you judge services on how well they work, not just on how "open" they are. To many people, just being "open" is not the be-all, end-all of whether something is better.

It is a step forward from SMS, although with many of the same drawbacks as SMS.

The point is that they're backing this non-secure chat over backing a secure alternative, like Allo.

You may recall that Google tried to back Allo. They recently backed away from it, with press reports pointing to a near-total lack of support from critical players such as carriers.

Google is stuck working with things their partners will support. They can't reliably be dictatorial like Apple can.

> They can't reliably be dictatorial like Apple can.

Why not?

If they never shipped an RCS client and made Allo part of the required Android install for Play Services compliance, who is going to stop them?

They choose not to be dictatorial.

Yours is the only post in this entire thread adding the needed context.

The article doesn't either. Yet somehow you were at the bottom of the page for me. I don't understand why.