BlackBerry issues futile call for ‘app neutrality’

App neutrality? Honestly?

This proposal by BlackBerry – actually sent to U.S. lawmakers yesterday – calls for the government to compel the likes of Netflix to make their applications work with the likes of BlackBerry whether business considerations justify it or not.

From a blog post based on that letter to Congress and carrying the byline of BlackBerry CEO John Chen.

Unfortunately, not all content and applications providers have embraced openness and neutrality. Unlike BlackBerry, which allows iPhone users to download and use our BBM service, Apple does not allow BlackBerry or Android users to download Apple’s iMessage messaging service. Netflix, which has forcefully advocated for carrier neutrality, has discriminated against BlackBerry customers by refusing to make its streaming movie service available to them. Many other applications providers similarly offer service only to iPhone and Android users. This dynamic has created a two-tiered wireless broadband ecosystem, in which iPhone and Android users are able to access far more content and applications than customers using devices running other operating systems. These are precisely the sort of discriminatory practices that neutrality advocates have criticized at the carrier level.

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