Iran suspends Google Gmail to build its own national email service. Your thoughts?
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M$7 Answers
I certainly can't say that I didn't see this coming, though. Nationalization is a technique that has been employed by many rulers over the years as a means of limiting foreign influence. Fidel Castro did it in Cuba, nationalizing all American businesses and lands in Cuba and making them official property of the State. In Cuba, nationalization helped the Cuban government and the Cuban people to endure despite a decades-long trade embargo. It will be interesting to see what direction Iran takes this into.
Tehran certainly has reason, at least from their own point of view, to maintain a strict control over the media infrastructure in Iran. After all, Ayatollah Khomeini's regime's rise to power was greatly aided by the distribution of his sermons on 8-Track cassette in the years before the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Shah, so certainly Tehran's aware of the power of western technology in Iran, and this move to exert more control over the emails their populace are sending and receiving comes as no surprise.
There's considerable political unrest in Iran just now, and I must admit, I'm curious to see how this is going to affect the political climate in Iran in the years to come, and their foreign relations with the rest of the world in consequence of this move. I'm also interested to see how Google is going to react to this. It's not often that a corporation gets into it with a national government. So far, Google's stepped toe to toe with one, and I'm interested to see if Iran's going to be the second in one year.
I wonder how this is going to affect Google's business.
Thoughts and opinions
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M$
Of course it's not so great for the citizens, since there is virtually a 100% chance their own government will be reading their email, compared to a small chance that the US government would be reading it.
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M$
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M$
The Iranians protesters use Twitter mainly to rally, and Facebook secondly. The suspension of Gmail (if confirmed) will not help.
I think Iran fundamentalist rule has support in the country but it won't last for ever and the ferment of the society will continue
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M$
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M$
I could not care less if Iran wants to use it's own email service. It is not like Google will lose money. They don't charge for gmail anyway.
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M$
The American systems is founded on the concept that the government exists for the good of the people. The Iranian despotism apparently believes that its citizens exist for the good of, and only with the consent of, the government.
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M$
Agree with you, but your last comment:
"..I wonder how this is going to affect Google's business"
...as if Iran´s market matters... or one day will be important for the Google world scheme of things. Come onnnnnn.... do you really think they (Google) are preoccupied?
Owners Sergey Brin and Larry Page are already the richest kids in the history of planet Earth. Google is a $150 billion company bigger than GM, Disney and McDonalds combined, and now... ¿They are going to have headaches over Iran? .... ¿¿Iran??
pleasseeee....!
It's not so much the fact that Iran itself is all that important to Google. But here is where the headache comes in, I think. Google has, thus far this year, entered into a major dispute with China, and now Iran is trying to kick gmail out of the country. Had China been the only government taking action against Google, it might be considered an isolated occurrence. But when Iran announced their plans to kick gmail out of the country, I started to wonder how many other countries would be following suit. China and Iran themselves don't significantly affect Google's business (though China certainly does more than Iran), but what if other countries follow suit? What if, within a couple years, there's 10 or 15 or 20 countries that have rejected Google? At that point, Google will have a huge headache. It's not so much that Iran's all that much of a danger to Google, but it's the ideas that Iran might inspire in other countries which presents the real danger to Google.
That's why I'm curious how this is going to work out.
Thank you. Glad to help. It was a very interesting conversation.
Could be... should be... would be.... come on baka, that is a paranoic way to view things. Google footprint in the world today is undeniable.
¿What if other countries follow suit? Which ones should be? I bet Cuba, North Korea, Nicaragua or Venezuela are some of them (oooh forgive me, North Korea is already out of the loop since they don´t have Internet connection to de world anyway) ¿How particular situation, eh?
All the totalitarian regimes on Earth today are precisely the ones that are closing the doors on Google. From all of those the one that really matters should be China, since that country is regarded as the largest emergent economy on the planet, and thus Google should be preoccupied.
But for the rest... ¿Iran? There have been no American company doing business in Iran during the last 30 years, so why suddenly Google should be preoccupied? They don´t matter for anything at any moment to most of the countries in the world except... off course, to other totalitarian regimes like Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, etc, etc... Got the picture?
See baka, there are tons of US companies out there that like Google, have been doing business with the rest of the world during decades. Take one of the most emblematic as example, IBM. International Business Machines got an overseas office in most developed and not developed countries, from Belgium to Greece, from Israel to Morocco, from Colombia to Argentina, From Australia to Japan, from Kenya to Bangladesh, from Ukraine to Pakistan... more than 100 countries has IBM offices. But like Google now, the don´t have offices or trade business with North Korea, Iran or Cuba.
So, in reality Google is not traveling the hardest road today that other US company haven´t traveled in the past. Is nothing new. Iran doesn´t matter for the world economy except for the world price of oil and to a bunch of arm dealers that supply the appetite of that nation for weapons, and since they already built a strong military industrial complex... the outside arm dealers are becoming less important to them everyday.
As of this week the US and a multitude of developed countries had imposed strict sanctions against Iran for their insistence on following their nuclear program. In reality, Iran is becoming more and more isolated today and most countries (including the ones that were doing business with them until now) are leaving that country alone, and when you are alone you are screwed.
¿Google wants to have deals with a screwed country like Iran, Cuba or North Korea? I don´t think so.
No country is an "island". None. Not even island countries. :p
The international community is just that. A community of nations. I think you underestimate Iran. Sure, Iran is no China, but it DOES matter. Every country matters, especially when we're talking about a business. Google's primary purpose, like any business, is to make money, and if they're shut out of country after country, that revenue IS affected. Iran itself might not represent a large share of the international market. But Iran is not entirely without influence, and to believe that it is would be a mistake, and a mistake I'm sure the top echelons at Google would probably prefer not to make. How much Iran exports is completely immaterial. What matters is that they have a populace of millions who ARE tech-savvy enough to use an email service, and were previously using Gmail. Now they're not. That's the bottom line for Google right now.
By the way, I would hardly call Cuba screwed. Certainly, they'd be doing better if there had been no embargo, but the country has done remarkably well despite that. Fidel Castro has long been vilified in the United States, because he IS an enemy of Capitalism (so am I, for that matter), but he, his Brother Raul, and the rest of the leadership of the country are far from technologically backwards. Google can't ignore them, and I doubt they will.
What it comes down to is, regardless of political affiliation, money. Google needs capital in order to run. In a capitalist economy, all companies do. China, Iran, Venezuela, etc...these countries by themselves might not account for a huge portion of Google's revenue (though China probably does), but the cumulative effect would be one Google cannot ignore.
The thing that really interests me about this situation with Google, though, is not economic, but political. Google has a lot of money, a lot of influence, and in a capitalist society, that translates to political power. Google tangling with national governments on a political level represents, I think, a paradigm shift in the international relationship between corporations and "the State", and I am curious to see how it will turn out.