Saudi Arabia to Ban BlackBerry Services by Friday

Troubles for BlackBerry services in the Middle East took a turn for the worse when Saudi Arabia announced its decision to ban BlackBerry services in the country effective Friday, August 6, 2010.




The move comes after the Saudi Arabian telecoms regulator, the Communications and Information Technology Commission, informed mobile service providers in Saudi Arabia to halt BlackBerry services starting Friday. The reason for the ban is the fact that the BlackBerry service "in its present state does not meet regulatory requirements", according to Saudi authorities.



This ban comes just a few hours after UAE said it plans to ban the service by October citing similar security related reasons.



India too is contemplating a ban on BlackBerry services following RIM's acceptance of the fact that there cannot be a "backdoor" entry to BlackBerry servers of corporates who are given their own keys. The data on these servers is not accessible even by RIM. The company, while accepting the fact that it needs to adhere to regulatory diktats, also added that the privacy of their clients too are of utmost importance.



Looking at the way this is moving ahead, things sure doesn't seem rosy for either RIM or BlackBerry users in these countries.