Iran Plans to replace Google & G Mail

Iranian Govt has announced a local replacement to Google and G-mail in light of the ban on the e-mail service, which was caused by an anti-islam movie.

This decision by some Iranian officials has been criticized by the local media. Gmail was blocked last week in the country, but the parent search engine Google remains unblocked.

The anti-islam movie which was produced in the United States was found by a court to be distributed by YouTube, owned by Google.

From Iran’s population of around 75 million, official statistics point out that about 32 million use the Internet. A lot of people have had feelings towards this ban, including even pro-government newspapers.

According to Hussein Garrousi, a parliamentary committee on industry member, “some problems have emerged through the blocking of Gmail.” He suggests that the ban should be lifted immediately.

According to Ali Hakim Javadi, deputy minister of Iran, the ban may be lifted soon, but not  before local alternatives will be presented. These are the Fajr email service and the Fakhr search engine. Fajr means “Dawn” and Fakhr means “Pride.”

Over one month since the ban, Iranians have spent as much as 4.5 million U.S. dollars just to buy proxy services so they could reach blocked sites.