We’ve all heard about Apple’s censorship and tight grips of the App Store for the iPhone/iPod Touch, rejecting applications without rhyme nor reason. It seems that BlackBerry maker Research in Motion will follow suit, stating that it will reject apps to the BlackBerry Application Storefront if those apps use too much bandwidth.

Although the decision to be a gatekeeper on bandwidth may be a good thing by forcing developers to be more efficient with their applications, it does beg the question if RIM has control of the Storefront or if this is a compromise on behalf of carriers. As carriers may not get any money for the Storefront and must support the bandwidth for downloads and applications that use the net, the carriers may want to limit use to keep costs at bay.

According to CNET:

said the bandwidth policy might differ across different mobile operators. “We are definitely going to be sensitive to people moving a significant amount of traffic over the carrier’s network without an agreement with the carrier,” he said, identifying streaming video and audio as possible sticking points.

However, just because an application isn’t available via the Storefront doesn’t mean that consumers can’t download and install applications via a desktop computer. To the average consumers who don’t want to fuss with synchronization and application management, this is definitely a setback.