An Open Letter to Google and Apple: Stop Hindering Iranian Entrepreneurs

Re:An Open Letter to Google and Apple: Stop Hindering Irania... by miracle2k on Friday June 28, 2019 @05:20AM (#20302690)

I'll note again the snowball effect that the Google Cloud block has (Google Cloud totally blocks Iran on a network level).

Now, your services that you host on Google Cloud are not available. Say you are Gitlab, and you host there (they do!). Now, if you put your Open Source project on Gitlab, that project is not accessible to Iranians either (as well as other sanctioned countries).

As someone you spends a couple of weeks every year in Iran, I can tell you that arbitrary websites breaking because of blocks on the US side have a far worse effect on my ability to work then the fact that Facebook and Twitter is blocked.

Why doesn't the documentation for date-fns work? Oh, they load the data from Firebase.

Why can't I compile by Android app? Oh, the Android repository is hosted on Google Cloud.

Etc.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Open Letter to Google and Apple: Stop Hindering Irania... by reallydontask on Friday June 28, 2019 @05:27AM (#20302718)

At work we ran G-Suite. Lead Dev went to Cuba for a holiday and was not able to use any of the services.

Great for him, not so good for a couple of angry customers that got no answers to emails.

He set an out of office but also said to those customer that he would reply to any queries ... oops

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Open Letter to Google and Apple: Stop Hindering Irania... by gruez on Friday June 28, 2019 @06:57AM (#20303088)

The gmail app doesn't complain that it can't connect to its servers?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Open Letter to Google and Apple: Stop Hindering Irania... by EForEndeavour on Friday June 28, 2019 @09:01AM (#20303804)

I'm guessing the dev quickly noticed the lack of connectivity and may have tried some obvious things to change his autoreply message, but those things didn't work and he & his company deemed it not worth it to try further.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Open Letter to Google and Apple: Stop Hindering Irania... by ForHackernews on Friday June 28, 2019 @05:55AM (#20302837)

...this sounds like a problem with centralizing the whole internet onto two or three servers -- excuse me, clouds.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Open Letter to Google and Apple: Stop Hindering Irania... by arjmandi on Friday June 28, 2019 @06:02AM (#20302863)

Sure, true point. Internet is meant to support freedom

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Open Letter to Google and Apple: Stop Hindering Irania... by espeed on Friday June 28, 2019 @05:57AM (#20302844)

Google Safety & Security Blog: An update on state-sponsored activity (2018) ...

Detecting and terminating activity on Google properties

"Actors engaged in this type of influence operation violate our policies, and we swiftly remove such content from our services and terminate these actors’ accounts. Additionally, we use a number of robust methods, including IP blocking, to prevent individuals or entities in Iran from opening advertising accounts."

https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/update-st...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Open Letter to Google and Apple: Stop Hindering Irania... by miracle2k on Friday June 28, 2019 @06:37AM (#20303024)

This doesn't really have anything to do with what I posted.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Open Letter to Google and Apple: Stop Hindering Irania... by espeed on Friday June 28, 2019 @07:49AM (#20303343)

It has to do with why Iranian IPs are being blocked by Google.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Open Letter to Google and Apple: Stop Hindering Irania... by miracle2k on Friday June 28, 2019 @09:54AM (#20304277)

No. It's because of the chilling effect of US sanctions.

Your explanation makes no sense - state hackers are not foiled by an IP block.

[ Parent | on HN ]