French Ban BlackBerries over Spy Concerns

You’ll want to believe us when we say that this story has a veracity factor that is very high. In other words, it may sound like we’re making it up, but we’re not.

The French government has banned its officials from using BlackBerry devices because of fears of spying. Yes, we kid you not. Apparently, the French government has just now realized that RIM’s info management group (including servers and such) is not actually in France but has its hardware in the U.S. and the U.K. Now, this doesn’t seem to be a problem for other European nations, or Asian nations, or any other nation, as far as we can determine. RIM insists that their security is tighter than Fort Knox’s. But the French are different, if only because they’re so French.

Whether this has the same wide reach as the dispute over iTunes remains to be seen.