BlackBerry users in line for $100 worth of free apps in compensation

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
A BlackBerry user in Canada last week as millions of customers across the world found their services disrupted. Photograph: Adrian Wyld/AP

Millions of people whose BlackBerry smartphones were affected by last week's outages will be compensated with $100 (£63) worth of apps from the company's app store.

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) said yesterday that each of the affected customers would be able to download the apps – including the games The Sims 3 and Bejeweled – from Wednesday, as the company attempts to restore its damaged reputation.

Millions of BlackBerry owners from the Middle East to the US were unable to send emails, browse the web or use BlackBerry Messenger last week after a problem at RIM's network centre in Slough sent a ripple effect worldwide.

Those affected will be able to download the premium apps from the BlackBerry App World until 31 December as "an expression of appreciation for their patience", RIM said.

Mike Lazaridis, co-chief executive of RIM, said: "We are grateful to our loyal BlackBerry customers for their patience. We have apologised to our customers and we will work tirelessly to restore their confidence.

"We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again."

RIM will also offer customers a one-month extension to technical support contracts. Enterprise customers and those who do not have a technical support contract will be offered a month's free helpline support.

The form of compensation may go some way to winning over customers who vented their anger at the Canada-based phone-maker last week. Comments on the BlackBerry blog CrackBerry appeared to welcome the offer. "Finally! They listened to us, thanks RIM! And thanks to CrackBerry for accommodating our complaint," said kelom.

The compensation package is likely to be costly for RIM if millions of customers take advantage of the offer. But those who download more apps may be more likely to stay with the platform – an important step as RIM tries to stave off defections to Google's Android, Apple's iPhone and the expected Windows Phone devices from Nokia. It has been losing customers in the US – and while it has grown its customer base, those are precisely the areas that were worst affected by the outage.

Analysts had previously forecast that RIM could be in line for a $100m payout to up to 70 million customers worldwide, based on a $5-a-month fee for the BlackBerry services.

"The total amount RIM should pay to refund its customers would be about $12m a day," Malik Saadi, an analyst at Informa, calculated last week. "This amount does not take into account liability fees for loss of data or any related legal issues. This could mean RIM paying over $100m, and this amount could escalate for every subsequent day the service is out of action."

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Facebook takes fresh steps to open up for users ' personal information

Facebook is planning to make users ' addresses and mobile phone numbers available for apps, people use on the Web site, even though it says it would require users to give explicit permission for it to happen.

The company reiterated its plan to move ahead with the opening of the users ' personal information, which was first revealed in a blog post on its developer blog in January — encoding entitled "Platform updates: New User-object fields, Edge contents.remove event and more" — but suspended three days later in anger Privacy reactions from advocates.

That included a letter from the US Congress representatives Edward Markey and Joe Barton, who objected to the idea. "Facebook needs to protect the personal information of users to Facebook is not the phone book", wrote Markey. "There is, therefore, I ask for answers to these questions to understand better the Facebooks practice relating to possible access to users ' personal information by third parties. This is sensitive data and must be protected. "

Despite criticism from privacy advocates and lawmakers in the United States when plans were announced, the company said in a letter to the House of representatives by Marne Levine, its vice President for global public policy, published Tuesday, that "we expect atNår function [to share your mailing and mobile data] is reactivated, Facebook again want to allow users to allow the program to obtain their contact information. "But the Facebook" currently assessing methods to further enhance user control in this area ".

The change will make the data available to app developers via a "permissions dialog box," when users enable a app on the social network Web site.

Write on MSNBC, Helen Popkin said about the latest plan to "Facebook pot slowly heating the water and we, my friends, is the frog. Since we noticed our peeling skin, is another any hunk of our private lives long away. "

She commented that the Facebook announcement, writeback, and Re-announcement fit a repeating pattern: "this is how Facebook rolls: removing a large part of your personal information, shouting ' Our bad! ' and scroll back when users and/or personal information advocates complain. Then wait a little, and do whatever it is Facebook planned to do anyway. How! Boiled frog. "

Facebook, in the meantime been experimenting with a new privacy policy, which would be more a guide to how personal information is used, rather than a lengthy legal document.

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