So who do we have so far in the BlackBerry ban? Everyday we keep hearing rumors of new countries agreeing to shut off services unless RIM does provide open access to all data that is intended to be secure with BlackBerry smartphones and not shared with anyone.  Here’s the countries we have so far:

• United Arab Emirates
• India
• Saudi Arabia
• Lebanon
• Indonesia

That’s 5 countries so far, but the matter should not be taken lightly as some of those countries really relied on BlackBerry as a preferred choice in smartphones.  It seems like countries are following each other at this point, petitioning together to result in RIM giving up and providing access to all data transferred through BlackBerry.

-by Otoniel Bruno

Source: RIMarkable

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RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said that “everything on the Internet is encrypted. This is not a BlackBerry-only issue. If they can’t deal with the Internet, they should shut it off.”  Very well said there.  Wall Street Journal did a whole article about the BlackBerry Ban issues going on in the world now.  Lazaridis strongly believes that these countries will come back to agreement and everything will be fine after some “rational” talking as he says.  Also, he is willing to work with the countries in providing “wiretap” style access to the countries but mentions this will take time and RIM will have to “make sure they understand the reality of the internet.”

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-by Mac Jadalhack

It’s no surprise that the European Union has observed at what is going on with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and India and made their decision based off of that speculation.  Both HTC and iPhones can be snooped over via carrier, but the BlackBerry goes through servers in both Canada and Britain, prohibiting other governments and parties going through these.  More countries are seeing this as a threat which as a result makes them back off and start shopping for other devices.  The two devices the EU Commission has picked are the iPhone and HTC Android devices of some sort.  What does RIM do? Cater to these governments who seek control over BlackBerry data or let them be in their own decisions?

-by Otoniel Bruno

Source: IntoMobile

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Last weekend, the United Arab Emirates officially announced they were freezing all BlackBerry services in the country due to the lack of RIM’s permission to snoop on users’ information and messages sent/received.  As the same is going on in India right now, Saudi Arabia wants in too and threaten to shut down the services as of this Friday. The suspension of BlackBerry services because as of now the BlackBerry “in its present state does not meet regulatory requirements.”  Things have not been looking good for RIM domestically to begin with as many suggest their last straw to get up top was yesterday’s opened curtains on the BlackBerry Torch 9800, but now three countries threatening to remove BlackBerry services is on a whole new level.

-by Otoniel Bruno

Source: Yahoo! News

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It was decided this morning that Indonesia’s government is going to throw their gloves in for the ban on new BlackBerry devices getting imported into its country.  So what was the real reason for the ban to begin with?  It was the Indonesia’s response to Research in Motion not opening a local service and repair facility in Indonesia in time.

They are saying that removing the ban had nothing to do with pressure RIM put against them, but only because RIM has went ahead and showed some progress in building the local service and repair facility.  Indonesia was well rushing it before and felt neglected as time went by and they had nothing from RIM on time.

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