Research In Motion Ltd (RIM) is working to block pornographic Web sites on BlackBerry services in Indonesia as the nation with the world’s largest Muslim population widens a campaign to clean up the Internet.
RIM is in talks with domestic phone carriers to find a “prompt, compliant filtering solution,” the maker of the BlackBerry said in a statement yesterday.
RIM has until Jan. 21 to begin filtering porn sites or face legal action, including revocation, Indonesian Communication and Information Technology Minister Tifatul Sembiring told reporters in Jakarta yesterday.
That may include a complete blocking of the BlackBerry’s Web browsing capability, Gatot Dewa Broto, a spokesman at the ministry, said by phone.
The move highlights the mounting challenges RIM faces in expanding overseas as countries such as India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates tighten restrictions on mobile e-mail.
In August last year, Sembiring said all Internet pornography sites would be permanently blocked in Indonesia.
“This isn’t just Indonesia,” said Heru Sutadi, a member of the Indonesian Telecommunications Regulatory Body, which oversees the industry. “Middle Eastern countries are also being hard on RIM. By looking at the big Indonesia market, I’m sure RIM will obey.”
Shares in RIM, based in Ontario, fell 14 percent last year on the NASDAQ after surging 66 percent in 2009 as it faced mounting competition from Apple’s iPhone and smartphones equipped with Google’s Android operating system.
The Indonesian government will meet with RIM and six mobile-service providers next Monday to ask them to filter out pornographic Web sites, Muhammad Budi Setyawan, director-general of post and telecommunications at the ministry, said yesterday by telephone. The ministry is targeting pornography, not RIM, as most Indonesian providers block such sites, he said.
“If RIM agrees to filter, they may take two to three days to discuss or hold the meetings with the operators,” Setyawan said. “If they do not want to filter, we will ask RIM to close the browser service as a whole.”
RIM has not complied with several of the government’s requests, including blocking pornographic sites and building a server in Indonesia so authorities can “conduct investigations against perpetrators of crime,” Sembiring said by mobile text message yesterday.
The company should also open representative offices and more service centers in Indonesia and hire domestic staff to serve the demands of more than 2 million BlackBerry users in the country, he said.
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