Gmail permanently suspended in Iran

Jacqueline DiOrio 10 Feb, 2010 at 4:59pm ET Article published in Tech

Never one to be beaten to the punch by China, Iran has recently moved to block Google’s Gmail within the country.

Iran’s telecommunications agency said that Gmail was being “suspended permanently,” and that a government-run email service would soon be deployed.

With Gmail on the skids, Internet connections have also been reported to be extremely slow as of late, and most texting has been blocked as well. One Iranian citizen said that the communication issues have been occurring for the better part of four days, and that his ISP reported that the issues were out of their control.

In addition to these restrictions, police have also begun confiscating satellite dishes and, in some cases, the cell phones of opposition leaders.

These moves appear to be in preparation for February 11, the anniversary of the Islamic Republic. Once a day of celebration, opposition leaders have named it as a day of protest against the Iranian government.

Google has not yet commented on Iran’s move, but it should be of interest given their recent stance on netsec issues in China.

Comments

10 Feb 2010 ~ 5:40pm Bandrik A sad day for computer geeks and Google fans in Iran. It will be interesting to see how this will pan out. If I were an Iranian citizen, I would be more than a bit hesitant to accept email services from the government - and in turn, giving them full access to my private information.
10 Feb 2010 ~ 6:35pm ardichoke Proxies. Same way the geeks in China continue to use GMail
10 Feb 2010 ~ 6:46pm lunchb0x
10 Feb 2010 ~ 9:34pm Komete eww... That sux. A little bit of warning would have been nice. I have a brother and sister over there and both of them use G-mail. It's our preferred mode of communication with the time difference and all.

The satellite dealio has been going on for years. There was even a time when they would go around and take large antenna's that could pick up TV from other countries off of peoples roofs. It goes and comes.
11 Feb 2010 ~ 8:23am mirage Proxy is not a solution. How many proxies are there? They can be blocked too. The only solution I see is getting rid of that government/regime.
11 Feb 2010 ~ 12:13pm Petra

mirage wrote:

Proxy is not a solution. How many proxies are there? They can be blocked too. The only solution I see is getting rid of that government/regime.

That's what they seem to be afraid of... After all, why else would a government restrict a populace's ability to communicate with each other and the outside world? The more communication roadblocks there are, the harder it is to organize.