The battle between governments and the internet took another turn yesterday when Saudi Arabia appeared to block access to Apple's MobileMe service. The Saudis gave no reason for the block, did not apply it to everyone in the country and lifted it within a few hours for at least some without an explanation.
Word of the government's block came from Apple World, a Saudi website.
MobileMe is Apple's cloud service, a conduit for email, contacts and calendar services, as well as storage for pictures, video and backups. It syncs with Macs, iPhones and iPads. Apple has a huge investment in MobileMe because of the growing interest in cloud computing, reportedly spending $1 billion to build a 4.6-hectare server farm in North Carolina for the service.
Last summer, the Saudi government threatened to shut down Blackberry services unless the Canadian company that runs Blackberries, Research in Motion (RIM), granted access to encrypted text and email messages sent from the devices. The Saudis claimed the step was necessary to hamper communication by terrorists. RIM worked out a settlement, agreeing to put a Blackberry server in Saudi Arabia and gave a government a key to the encryption code.
