Iran to set up email service in place of Gmail
February 20, 2010
Shahrzad News: Not content with blocking and filtering all international email services to its citizens, the Iranian government is now planning to launch its own email service which it hopes will replace Googlemail, which is used by millions of Iranians.
The internet industry’s website TopNews said that the blocking of all email services in and out of Iran during last week’s anniversary of the Islamic Revolution was ‘the first step in implementing this new strategy for the control of the internet by the Iranian regime”.
More and more Iranian dissident groups are using the net to organise their protests, and popular social networking sites like Facebook have in recent weeks been targetted by hackers who are believed to be working for the Iranian authorities.
According to a Google spokesperson, the search engine and email service provider does not have the necessary means to counteract the filters that the Iranian government uses to block access to internet sites. Instead, Google bypasses the filtering by using third countries whose communications with Iran are still free from interference.
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