Unstoppable Domains, a company onboarding users to the decentralized web, launched a decentralized chat protocol “Dchat” out of Mozilla’s ‘Fix the Internet’ incubator. Dchat integrates with a user’s crypto wallet as well as a peer-to-peer (p2p) network to secure and store chat messages. Unlike traditional chat apps that store messages on their own servers, Dchat is 100% controlled by users.
“Rather than having Tinder or Facebook read your messages, Dchat enables users to own, encrypt, and store their messages directly”
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Messaging privacy has become a flashpoint for consumers as companies are known to read text messages to place advertisements or block messages as part of surveillance programs run by some governments.
“Rather than having Tinder or Facebook read your messages, Dchat enables users to own, encrypt, and store their messages directly,” explained Matthew Gould, co-founder at Unstoppable Domains.
To make matters worse, recent legislation aimed at increasing liability for companies providing chat servers threatens to entirely eliminate a whole class of private messaging apps in the United States. Under the EARN IT Act certain secure messaging platforms, like Signal, may even need to leave the US market entirely, dealing a huge blow to privacy advocates. According to the EFF, who penned a blog post on the upcoming legislation:
“The EARN IT Act could end user privacy as we know it. Tech companies that provide private, encrypted messaging could have to re-write their software to allow police special access to their users’ messages.”
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