[governance] Yahoo! and Microsoft have removed Iran from the country lists

[Riaz K. Tayob]

Sanctions bite, but not at Gmail
By Chris Williams ¡ú More by this author
Published Wednesday 7th November 2007 17:50 GMT
Exclusive

Yahoo! and Microsoft have removed Iran from the country lists of their
webmail services as stronger US sanctions against the Islamic republic
begin to bite.

Google has kept Iran as an option on the Gmail registration page, however.

The US administration stepped up economic pressure on Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's eccentric government less than two weeks ago.

A Yahoo! spokeswoman told The Reg: "Yahoo! continually reviews its
business operations to ensure compliance with these restrictions.
Consistent with this policy, we cannot accept registrations from
countries subject to these restrictions.

So essentially, you can't choose Iran as a country option because we
are restricted from conducting business there ¨C all US companies must
comply with this policy." She was unable to tell us exactly when
Yahoo! applied the rules.

Microsoft said it was unable to comment on the issue.

Google insists the sanctions do not preclude it from including Iran in
its Gmail country list. A statement from the firm said: "Google is
committed to full compliance with US export controls and sanctions
programs and is confident in our compliance with those controls and
programs."

A representative of the Iranian embassy in London was unable to
provide an immediate response.

On 30 October, the Tehran correspondent of Netherlands newspaper NRC
Handelsblad reported (in Dutch) that his paid Skype account had been
cancelled. An email from the VoIP outfit said its financial services
provider had been forced to stop taking payments from Iran.

That's perhaps more easily understable than a blockade on free email.
Whether Yahoo! and Microsoft's apparent action is the result of an
over-zealous compliance lawyer or not, the effect on US interests of
denying ordinary Iranians access to free international communications
is questionable at best.

Of course, the Iranian government itself heavily restricts what its
citizens can access online. The OpenNet Initiative, a collaboration of
Harvard, Toronto, Oxford, and Cambridge universities, describes it as
having installed "one of the most extensive technical filtering
systems in the world".

<http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=30316&sectionid=3510213>
Iran removed from Yahoo, Hotmail list
Thu, 08 Nov 2007 18:01:42

Microsoft and Yahoo have removed Iran from the country lists of their
web mail services, after the US imposed new sanctions on Iran.

"Yahoo continually reviews its business operations to ensure
compliance with these restrictions. Consistent with this policy, we
cannot accept registrations from countries subject to these
restrictions," a Yahoo spokeswoman told The Register.

"So essentially, you can't choose Iran as a country option because we
are restricted from conducting business there - all US companies must
comply with this policy," she added.

Microsoft, however, declined to comment on the issue.

Google has kept Iran as an option on the Gmail registration page.

Google officials said that the sanctions do not preclude it from
including Iran in its Gmail country list.
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