Iran Calls For Google And Yahoo To Aid In Cyber Defense
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The Iranian cyber police officials have called Yahoo and Google cyber companies to co-operate with them for preventing online crimes, Defense World reports.
Iran has asked Yahoo, Google, and the messaging app Telegram to “work with us in the prevention of criminal acts”, said Hossein Ramezani, Iran’s deputy cyber-police chief for international affairs.
The country could allow Internet giants to offer their services in the country if they respected Iran’s “cultural rules and policies,” and that the Islamic republic did not “tolerate” social-networking sites that allow the sharing of “immoral content”, an Iranian official was reported as saying in a radio interview.
Iran has strict Internet censorship rules and has blocked thousands of websites. Further, it monitors the online activities of its citizens, including activists and critics of the establishment. Several activists have been interrogated, harassed, and sentenced to jail terms due to their online activities.
Requests for comment on their dealings with the Iranian government went unanswered by Yahoo, Google, and Telegram, a mobile messaging app popular in Iran.
The messaging app (Telegram) in recent months has become popular among Iranians, who use it to communicate with each other and share content, including pornography and political satire.
Washington-based Internet researcher Colin Anderson says U.S.-based Internet giants like Yahoo and Google are unlikely to comply with requests by the Iranian government, but that the situation is less clear with Telegram.
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said last week that global Internet and technology companies should avoid putting Iranian users at risk by sharing their private information with the Iranian government.
