Gmail access restored in Iran, YouTube ban remains

Hmmm, it seems that with enough hue and cry, governments would bend to the will of the people, although this is but a generalization and should not be taken as the gospel truth. Remember our coverage on how the Iranian government actually blocked access to Gmail and wanted to start an internal Internet of their own? Well, Iranian officials have stepped forward to say that the Gmail block was “involuntary”, and restrictions which were in place a week ago have been lifted up from Gmail as well as Google, the world’s undisputed search engine. As for folks who to view their favorite music videos on YouTube, tough luck if you’re living in Iran as that site remains unavailable to the masses.

Iran’s telecommunications ministry committee mentioned regarding the ban: “We wanted to block YouTube, and Gmail was also blocked, which was involuntary. We do not yet have enough technical know-how to differentiate between these two services. We absolutely do not want YouTube to be accessible. That is why the telecommunications ministry is seeking a solution to fix the problem to block YouTube under the HTTPS [Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure] protocol while leaving Gmail accessible. That will soon happen.”

“Soon” being the operative keyword here, it would be interesting to see if the YouTube ban would be lifted – ever.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers
Tags: GMail, Google