The United Arab Emirates and BlackBerry? Cherchez la server

From The Economist

The United Arab Emirates announced on August 1st that it had failed to reach an agreement on data traffic with Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, and would suspend messenger, e-mail and web-browsing services on BlackBerrys from October 11th. There are lots of smart-phones in the world that handle e-mail and web browsing; why pick on BlackBerry? From the UAE’s telecoms regulator:

BlackBerry data is immediately exported off-shore, where it is managed by a foreign, commercial organization. BlackBerry data services are currently the only data services operating in the UAE where this is the case.

Whenever you read about a dispute between a web-based service and a country, you need to ask yourself only one question: where is the server located? The conflict between Google and China came down to the conditions under which Google could locate servers in China. Closer servers offer a faster load-time, but servers on the Chinese mainland fall under Chinese law. WikiLeaks, as well, takes advantage of server law by routing all links through servers in countries with strong protections for whistleblowers and journalists.

To Read More…