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" BlackBerry users in the US and Canada have sued Research in Motion (RIM) over the recent global service disruptions. Millions of RIM customers were left without access to email, instant messaging and internet  when the worldwide outage took hold earlier this month.  The firm was hit by a Canadian compensation lawsuit on Wednesday, accusing them of breach of contract. This was followed by a similar complaint in the US, BBC News reports. &amp;quot;RIM will formally respond to the matter in due course,&amp;quot; read a statement from the platform holder. &amp;quot;It has not compensated consumers on a prorated basis for such loss of use, while knowing full well that Blackberry users pay a monthly fee to their wireless service providers for data services and that they were deprived thereof.&amp;quot; The blackout, which was attributed to a back-up system failure, struck users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North America, India and other territories on October 10, lasting four days. The Canadian suit accuses RIM of depriving users of services for &amp;quot;approximately one and a half days&amp;quot;. RIM co-founder Mike Lazaridis has previously apologised for the service disruption and offered customers a compensation package consisting of free apps worth more than $100 (\u00A363). Analysts predict that there could be more lawsuits around the corner for the company. Malik Saadi, principal analyst with Informa Telecom &amp;amp;amp; Media, warned that there could be a &amp;quot;snowball effect&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;If the consumer forums get involved they could mobilise individuals into seeking compensation and there will be a snowball effect,&amp;quot; he said. BlackBerry&amp;#039;s profits took a tumble in recent months following slow sales of its PlayBook tablet. The struggling device&amp;#039;s OS 2.0 software update has been postponed until February next year. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/news/a347859/blackberry-users-sue-research-in-motion-over-outage/>