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They did. RCS.
It technically isn't proprietary. But many implementations are reliant on Google's Jibe system. So even if you've avoided Google completely. If you use RCS there is a strong chance all your messages are going through Google.
RCS relies on the carrier to implement. With many carriers using Jibe, even if your doesn't the people you message likely are. So you can't get away from Google.
At least with iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal (plus Allo, Hangouts GChat, meet, GmailTalk etc). You know who controls the messaging service. You can then made a decision to engage with that messaging service.
With RCS this isn't clear. You may think your using your carrier or the person's your communicating with carrier. Or you may be using Google's Jibe. Or some other implementation.
As long as the protocol is open and has encryption you don't need to care much about that. Packets on the internet travel through thousands of different machines around the world. You are either using encryption or the whole world is reading your message anyway. There is nothing in-between. If you even want to hide metadata, you would need to use something like Session.
Problem is, there is an between. The problem is peolple confusing E2EE and Zero Knowledge thinking they're the same thing, and they're not.
RCS is E2EE, but is it zero knowledge? The Goog says yes, and that the key pairs are generated on device, so in theory its just as good as Signal, but is it? We'll never know if Google has those keys or not. The protocol itself being open is useless once its wrapped in proprietary shit. Still better than SMS, and sadly still a better choice for the masses than even Signal as you have a better shot at more E2EE being used sadly. I had a LOT of Signal users in my circle (my doing) but since signal became cunts and dropped SMS so many go pissed at using multiple apps so they dropped it. Kills me as a de-googler and Graphene users to use Google Messages a lot, but its the best shot sadly.
I’m so happy to see someone else is finally talking about this. RCS, as implemented by Google, is distinct from the actual open RCS standard. Google added a proprietary middle layer which is how they get features working which RCS doesn’t support.
And that proprietary middle layer (Jibe being part of it) is why there aren’t a million third party RCS clients out there. Google must give API access. They are gatekeepers. And they only share keys with strategic partners (Samsung being one of them, telcos with their own app like Verizon used to have being another).
But in the end Google did what Google does best: fragmented a product. And now Google holds the leash for RCS proper. I bet Apple isn’t too keen to route all customer data through Google servers even when encrypted. Because it’s another piece that Apple doesn’t control.
Well, RCS was originally more fragmented before Google. Each carrier wanted to handle RCS messaging differently. T-Mobile made their own, but it only worked with other T-Mobile users.
Google was tired of waiting for all the carriers to agree and come up with their universal cross-carrier RCS platform, so they decided to come up with something that works with Google Messages, which is generally accepted as the RCS standard now.
If the messages are E2E encrypted (which is the case here) does it actually matter?