Governments ban BlackBerry service.

• Position: PRIVACY

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The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, India, other countries have threatened to ban Blackberry services unless they are given access to BlackBerry maker Research In Motion's (RIM) corporate e-mail servers so they can monitor messages going in and out of their countries. BlackBerry data is stored on secure servers that RIM owns in the United Kingdom and Canada.

According to Digital Trends, these countries are concerned that encrypted BlackBerry communications could be used by terrorists to plan and carry out attacks. Indian authorities feel particularly threatened: They believe the BlackBerry was used in the terrorist attacks on Mumbai in 2008, according to The New York Times. Indian officials have said the government has the right to demand access under terms of license agreements with wireless phone companies.

The UAE had said it would ban BlackBerry service beginning October 11, but a few days previous to that, the UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said RIM had come up with a solution making BlackBerry services compatible with its regulations.

India had said it would block BlackBerry e-mails and instant messages for its 1 million users if RIM did not provide access to decoded BlackBerry messages by August 31. But before that deadline, the government announced it would study and test a proposal from RIM for two months before making any further decisions.

Saudi Arabia, RIM's largest market in the Middle East, has about 700,000 BlackBerry users. According to a Saudi Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) official, to avoid a ban on BlackBerry services, RIM...