As Research In Motion faces an increasingly public dispute with several countries over the ability to monitor communication on its BlackBerry devices, virtually all other major technology communications companies have remained silent on the issue. That may soon change: RIM is likely just the first test case.

The government of India indicated yesterday that RIM isn't the only company from which it will demand greater monitoring access. State authorities listed Internet phone company Skype SA and Google Inc., provider of the wildly popular Gmail service, as targets.

The move signals that the issue of monitoring data traffic goes far beyond RIM's encrypted BlackBerrys – and probably has more to do with a looming collision between the advance of digital communication and the security demands of the state than with the Ontario company's technology.

Colin Gillis, senior technology analyst with New York-based BGC Financial, said companies such as Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. may also face a growing risk of having to make accessible to governments more of the customer data that flows through their networks. Both companies – like Google and many other major tech firms – provide cloud computing services, often in the form of e-mail or data storage.

A Google spokeswoman said she could not comment on the India situation. A Skype spokesman did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

India's latest move comes as RIM seeks to reassure its large corporate customers of the BlackBerry's security. Citing two unnamed sources, Bloomberg reported that the company has held at least one conference call in the past week with clients including Goldman Sachs Group and JPMorgan Chase – much of the foreign government's requests for access have focused on RIM's enterprise BlackBerry service, which caters predominantly to businesses.

The numerous demands made by various governments to access BlackBerry data – which began early this month with the United Arab Emirates and has since included Saudi Arabia and India, among others – has forced RIM into the difficult position of trying to assuage both state security agencies and major corporate clients.

Two security experts who spoke to The Globe and Mail in the past week said it is understood that RIM has arrangements with security agencies in the United States and Canada, and that those agencies can readily monitor BlackBerry communication. However, RIM has repeatedly said it does not make special arrangements with individual countries, and that the solutions it provides to any one of the 175 nations in which it operates, it provides to all.

Earlier this week, U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said in a press briefing that State Department officials met with RIM and that the company indicated that it may be able to reach agreements with the various governments.

“[RIM's] perspective was that they believe that there are, again, broadly speaking, solutions available that, on a country-by-country-by-country basis, can satisfactorily address and balance the regulatory security and access issues that are at stake,” Mr. Crowley said, according to a press briefing transcript.

The dispute that began with the UAE's ultimatum to RIM – that it provide greater access to BlackBerry data or risk seeing some of its services shut down – has increasingly become as much about politics as public safety.

The U.S. State Department, which was quick to express its “disappointment” at the UAE's move, has since taken a decidedly more nuanced view, saying the situation between RIM and various countries “encompasses a very complex set of technical and policy issues.”

Mr. Gillis said the issue of data monitoring is certainly not unique to foreign jurisdictions.

“It's not only other countries,” he said. “There's also the Patriot Act issues in the U.S.

“The privacy issue has been around for a long time, but it does seem to be heating up.”