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UAE Says RIM Played Ball, Will Maintain Service

Posted by Soulskill on from the cryptic-conclusion dept.

cgriffin21 writes "The United Arab Emirates will not suspend services on BlackBerry smartphones next week, following an agreement reached with BlackBerry maker Research In Motion that is said to comply with UAE policy. It'll be a relief for the roughly 500,000 BlackBerry users in the UAE, a turnaround on the planned Oct. 11 service suspension. In a brief statement, the UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said that BlackBerry services 'are now compliant with the UAE's telecommunications regulatory framework.'" The Guardian's coverage quotes an anonymous UAE university professor, who said, "The general opinion amongst the business expat community, westerners at least, has been for some time now that [the ban] wasn't going to happen. Call it a failure of imagination on their part, but no one could conceive of how the country could do something so counterproductive to the image they are trying to present primarily to the west. Was it posturing? To some extent."

4 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. There was never any doubt by clang_jangle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There was never any doubt RIM would cave. Nor any doubt that private communications are virtually nonexistent on this planet.

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    Caveat Utilitor
  2. Funny by jgagnon · · Score: 3, Funny

    What's funny is that some day soon (-ish or could already be argued true in some cases), huge multi-national companies will be more powerful than governments.

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    Remember to maintain your supply of /facepalm oil to prevent chafing.
  3. How does this affect visitors? by Lieutenant_Dan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can enlighten me ...

    If I take my BB over to UAE, I guess when I start roaming on their local service, all my BES communication will go through the local UAE RIM gateways, correct? The same gateways that the UAE will have some major visibility into. So that means that something that is private in the US/Canada will forego that confidentiality once I'm within their borders?

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    Wearing pants should always be optional.
    1. Re:How does this affect visitors? by Existential+Wombat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you think your BB information is private in the US and probably Canada, you're living in cloud cuckoo land (wherever that is).

      There's no way the US would allow a public communications system they could not get into.