The messaging is provided by a third party who is dedicated to working on their iMessage compatibility. Apple has no reason to stop this because this is a good move for them in the larger battle between mobile messaging standards.

Google owns Jibe, the company behind RCS messaging found on all Android phones and an emerging, competent product from the only game in town that can compete with Apple. Google has decided to take this to the government level and push for a unified phone messaging standard, normally a good thing, but proposed their own RCS solution. The one they own and whose servers Google scrapes for user info.

Apple is pushing iMessage as a protest against Google and their inevitable lawsuit to conform with RCS adoption. Android may win unless Apple shows it has parity and provides a non-legislative option: if enough people use iMessage then governments don’t have to make any laws or enforce changes. The company Nothing is using iMessage, which helps Apple prove there is both a significant user base, which would cause a burden on Apple and it’s customers to change, and there is no monopoly on iMessage or messaging in general. So if enough people use iMessage, Apple sees it as a good thing.