The Iranian government has officially banned the use of Gmail in the country, reports The Wall Street Journal. In place of Google’s email platform, Iran will allow citizens to use a State-sponsored national email service.
The ban coincides with the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Republic, which is expected to draw mass protests and riots from citizens who are both for and against the regime. Last summer, during the controversy surrounding the Iranian elections, Iran banned social network FriendFeed. Facebook was also banned around election time. As many other communications outlets were blocked around this time period, Iranian citizens took to Twitter as the main tool of choice to spread information about what is going on.
Already it appears that the government is beginning to crack down on text messaging. It should be interesting to see if Iran starts handing out bans on social networks like Facebook and Twitter if citizens begin to spread information about demonstrations and protests on the networks. Earlier this year, the country banned Badoo, a popular social network in emerging markets.
Photo credit/Flickr/dougcurran
Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps and YouTube. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing them with a rich source of information....
Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 (launched publicly in July 2006), is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post their latest updates. An update is limited by 140 characters and can be posted through three methods: web form, text message, or instant message. The company has been busy adding features to the product like Gmail import and search. They recently launched a new site section called “Explore” for...
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