It is a sad day for the people of Iran as Yahoo and Microsoft have removed Iran from the country lists of their webmail services, claiming that they had to comply with the US policy that prevents them from doing business with Iran. Fortunately, Google mail is still available to the people of the country, and it seems that they are playing with the law by staying at the edge – claiming that they are still complying with the US export controls and sanction programs.
Since these services are free, there is the question of whether this course of action was even necessary. Skype’s removal of their paying Iranian members made more sense, since it dealt with the exchange of currency and would be more appropriately be considered as ‘conducting business’. Perhaps the lawyers of the giants, Yahoo and Microsoft were over-zealous, especially with Microsoft taking a few hits from huge law suits recently. If it is in compliance with the law, what the US is doing may be questionable. What justifies the action of taking away free international communication services from the Iranians?
Even though these may sound harsh, the Iranians were already restricted online under what many of the top universities have called “one of the most extensive technical filtering systems in the world”. This has only worsened the problem in Iran, and it all came to be since the eccentric government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took helm about two weeks ago.
The people can only contemplate what will happen to Iran next, after this incident of controversy. From how it looks, it seems that this may only get worse with time as the people of Iran suffer more from the removal of services that are a huge part of our online lives. The tension between the two nations is only going to get worse as more of these policies are created, and it does not help any side at all. With the British siding the US in their decisions, it does not look very good for Iran at all.
