Slashdot Mirror
BlackBerry Battle In India Going Down To the Wire
crimeandpunishment writes "With just days before the deadline, BlackBerry's maker was shot down by India in its latest effort to avoid having its services cut off for about a million Indian users of the device. Research in Motion's effort to broaden the debate over data encryption were rejected. The Indian government wants access to users' emails. The head of a powerful industry group in India accused RIM of taking the wrong approach to negotiations, saying, 'It need not have escalated to this level. Folks like RIM have to understand business is done differently here.'"
RIM's in a no-win situation here.
If they abide by the laws of the land and provide the government of India access to Indian citizens' communications they're removing privacy from those citizens. Thing is that according to the Indian government their citizens aren't evidently entitled to that privacy. So RIM can "cave in" and abide by the Indian officials' demands but at the cost of a moral high-ground. Citizens lose, government wins, RIM maintains status quo.
If they refuse to "cave in", they get shut down and those very same citizens have to buy new phones from wonderful vendors like Apple and the government will tap those communications. Citizens lose, government wins, RIM loses customers.
So really, what should they do?
"Oh no... he found the