Saudi Arabia Blocking BlackBerry Service

As planned earlier, the Government of Saudi Arabia finally started to stop the BlackBerry services or Blackberry applications starting on Friday (06/08/2010). A number of users in the country reported that the BlackBerry service started not working since Friday morning.

"I sure the BlackBerry services to have stopped," said one user in Jeddah, as reported by AFP. The average users began to realize that his BlackBerry device is no longer functioning as usual since 9:00 pm local time.

Earlier, on Tuesday, the Saudi Arabian telecommunication regulator has asked the three mobile operators that serve to halt BlackBerry smartphone service from this Friday. The reason, the BlackBerry service does not meet the regulatory requirements set by the government can not monitor the content of messages that are distributed among BlackBerry users.

All transmitted data is encrypted on the BlackBerry service with a highly secure and managed from a server in Canada. With this causes, make difficulties Saudi Arabian authorities to monitor the possibility of abuse that could be considered threatening state security.

Saudi Arabia steps undertaken only difference five days after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) said the same reason. A new BlackBerry smartphone in the UAE will be banned starting next October 11, 2010 and still awaiting response BlackBerry providers, Research In Motion (RIM), Canada. Blocking BlackBerry will also be conducted by the Government of India. Then where else the state will block the Blackberry?