Iran shuts down Google Mail

Iran has announced plans to permanently ban Google’s email service from being used within its borders.

by James Quinn in New York
Telegraph [UK]
10 February 2010

In a move ahead of Thursday’s 31st anniversary of the creation of Iran’s Islamic Republic, the national telecoms agency in Tehran said that it will ban Gmail and will instead facilitate its own national email service.

The decision, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes just a month after Google threatened to leave China amid concerns that its systems had been attacked by Chinese hackers.

The Iranian announcement is understood to be part of a wider crackdown on opposition protests ahead of today’s anniversary, which is likely to bring significant protests from both dissenters and supporters of the Islamic revolution.

The development came amid reports of significant disruptions to internet services across the country in the last week, as well as delays in text messages being sent…

…YouTube, which is owned by Google, was one of the main ways in which video footage of the protests was beamed around the world…

The article continues at the Telegraph.

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