Commentary from Rafik: Strategic myopia and one gigantic step backward: UAE acts to muzzle Blackberry. While the remainder of the world moves forward, Middle Eastern Arab countries are especially good at find unimaginable ways at shackling their own people and slowing any kind of progress. Here we go again. In the past, they would have banned messenger doves too because these too could not be monitored!!!
BBC
Two Gulf states have announced bans on some functions of the Blackberry mobile phone, claiming security concerns.
The United Arab Emirates is to block sending emails, accessing the internet, and delivering instant messages to other Blackberry handsets.
Saudi Arabia is to prevent the use of the Blackberry to Blackberry instant messaging service.
Both nations are unhappy that they are unable to monitor such communications via the handsets.
This is because the Blackberry handsets automatically send the encrypted data to computer servers outside of the two countries.
Related stories
The UAE ban is to start in October, while the Saudi move will begin later this month.
Abdulrahman Mazi, a board member of state-controlled Saudi Telecom, has admitted that the decision is intended to put pressure on Blackberry’s Canadian owner, Research in Motion (RIM), to release data from users’ communications “when needed”.
The UAE’s telecoms regulator, TRA, said the lack of compliance with local laws raised “judicial, social and national security concerns”.
RIM has yet to comment on either case.
There are an estimated 500,000 Blackberry users in the UAE, and 400,000 in Saudi Arabia. [Please click here to read the remainder of the article]
The Islamic Workplace 
Khawla
August 2, 2010
They are just going to have the server in the UAE, which is a good move, in my opinion, to track down those who send hoax messages and make the life of the people miserable. Maybe you think it is a step backward, but I support it if it is going to stop the bad users.
The majority of the *youth* using this technology are not benefiting from it well, sadly. They are addicted to this machine and they use it at work and while driving. But, it is really helpful to know when our papers are finished and when we are ready to collect them.
We, the people of the UAE, know better.
Rafik
August 2, 2010
Aren’t the UAE authorities the same people who tried to get Blackberry users to upload spyware software to their smartphones while pretending that it was a OS update? I wonder why you enjoy having this kind of stuff done to you while business people who need to be able to discuss confidential information are being snooped into or are unable to do so.