BlackBerry Messaging Services Turned Off & Back On in Saudi Arabia

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In case you’re living in Saudi Arabia and have a BlackBerry device as your chosen smartphone or in case you’re traveling there for business or leisure, today is going to be the day when RIM’s BlackBerry messaging services get turned off in order to comply with local security regulations. Or at least that’s what was supposed to happen until these BlackBerry services came back up again.

I’m sure you didn’t miss this whole melodrama between RIM and some Arabian countries not happy with how BlackBerry messaging services can’t be spied and everything. And RIM made sure their position is well understood by its worldwide customers. Mike Lazaridis went even on record to defend the BlackBerry smartphones and the services they offer.

But then how did RIM manage to have these services turned back on in Saudi Arabia? What has RIM agreed to do for the government? I’m sure some kind of negotiations took place before the messaging services were turned back on. Of course RIM must be well aware that sales might be affected if other countries follow this trend (banning BlackBerry services) so some compromise must be made in order to ensure that customers don’t ditch RIM phones for other devices.

What’s more interesting is that RIM made it clear that its services are more than safe:

“RIM cannot accommodate any request for a copy of a customer’s encryption key, since at no time does RIM, or any wireless network operator or any third party, ever possess a copy of the key.”

So if that’s the case then what has the Canadian-based company agreed to do for the Saudi government. Other countries are also going to shut down the same BlackBerry messaging services so it will be interesting to follow RIM in the following months. Will the company jeopardize BlackBerry communication security for profits? At the end of the day that the logical question one has to ask especially as there’s no news on the matter from RIM yet.