The authorities in Saudi Arabia have banned use of communications app Viber, warning that it will “take appropriate action against any other applications or services if they fail to comply with regulatory requirements and rules in force in the Kingdom”, according to Reuters.

The decision made by the Communications and Information Technology Commission comes due to the fact that that it is hard for the state to monitor the use of such apps, and because they remove revenue for calls and texts from licensed operators, the report said.

The move comes after comments made in March 2013, where the regulator said that apps such as Viber, WhatsApp and Skype were in the firing line unless operators worked with the over-the-top players to ensure that messages could be monitored.

And this followed a 2010 run-in with BlackBerry concerning its messaging services, which was settled without a block being put in place.