The era of enemies is over! WeChat can now directly access Taobao

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Whenever friends share good things from Taobao on WeChat, but need to copy the link/password first and then open the browser/Taobao to see it, I believe many friends will be upset. So when can they visit Taobao directly on WeChat? Now it is here.

On November 29, WeChat released an update note for the "WeChat External Link Content Management Specifications", which mentioned: In point-to-point chat scenarios, external links will be directly accessible without restrictions.

In addition, for group chat scenarios, the function of directly accessing e-commerce external links will be piloted. It is expected that other types of links will not be directly accessible in group chats for the time being. At the same time, WeChat also stated that it plans to develop an independent selection mode in the future to provide users with external link management functions.

Abu actually tested this and found that it is now possible to directly click on the Taobao links shared by friends on WeChat. You will not be prompted to copy the link and open the browser as before. This is a huge improvement for the tense relationship between Tencent and Alibaba.

The conflict between Tencent and Alibaba is a long-standing one. The most famous incident between them was probably the "2.3 Tencent and Alibaba mutual ban incident" in 2015. At that time, Alipay Wallet, which had just launched the red envelope function, intended to ignite the craze for grabbing red envelopes again with the help of the relationship chain of WeChat Moments.

So starting at noon on February 2, 2015, the red envelope function in the Alipay wallet added new sharing entrances for WeChat, Moments, QQ and QQ Space. However, before the fire could really be ignited, WeChat immediately poured cold water on it. That evening, WeChat completely blocked Alipay's sharing interface.

In fact, before Alipay Wallet extended the battlefield of grabbing red envelopes to the WeChat platform, WeChat allowed users to call Alipay on WeChat.

But this peaceful coexistence was completely broken on the afternoon of February 3, 2015. Alipay publicly announced on its Sina Weibo that starting from the afternoon of February 2, merchants who opened stores through the WeChat public platform would not be able to use Alipay to receive and pay.

At that time, WeChat's attitude towards this incident was also very strong, saying: "When Alibaba connects to WeChat Pay, we will discuss it again." The two sides refused to give in to each other and have continued to compete secretly in various aspects since then.

In fact, the fact that WeChat can support direct access to Taobao this time does not mean that Tencent and Alibaba have finally reconciled, but that the relevant regulations on interoperability proposed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in September 2021 played a huge role in it. The regulations require companies to pragmatically promote different types of issues such as instant messaging blocking URL links in accordance with rectification requirements, so that they can be resolved step by step and in stages.

Sharing is a right that our users should have, but it is an infringement of this right for platforms to set up barriers to hinder free sharing among users due to market competition. This should not become a "common practice" in the Internet industry. In this update of WeChat to support direct access to external links, we have seen a good start. Only healthy competition among companies will be more beneficial to us consumers.