Ok, we’ve all heard that RCS isn’t end-to-end encrypted (even though it is encrypted to and from the carriers), but I just read an article at The Register that begs the question “is RCS privacy legally required to be better than OTT apps?”

And the server? Google doesn’t get to turn Chat users – or their Chats – into part of its vast data lake, because telcos live in a regulated world where one of the things you buy with a service is the relative privacy of your communications (yes, The Register know about wiretaps, but even those are regulated to a greater or lesser degree).

The Register

With Facebook announcing plans to tie Facebook Messenger, Instagram Message and Whatsapp together on the back end, is RCS a privacy contender (especially since 2 of the 3 Facebook apps don’t currently do E2E by default)? Does Facebook plan on making all three E2E encrypted because it knows the world doesn’t trust it to NOT dip it’s fingers in the data pool unless it can’t?

And this doesn’t even touch on the fact that Facebook COULD (but probably won’t) make RCS an option in it’s messaging platform. If the WhatsApp/Facebook messages were to be created as a RCS client, think how many more people BOTH user communities could message without thinking about it….