# do people in Iran use American email providers?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-in-iran-use-american-email-providers/527683>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 4, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-in-iran-use-american-email-providers/527683 "2010-02-04T16:28:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-in-iran-use-american-email-providers/527683/1 "2010-02-04T16:28:27Z")

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not sure if this is true or not, but I heard a rumor of Uday Hussain using a Yahoo mail account with a trivial to crack password. Which gets me thinking - do people in countries that can be either spied on by the West or even get in a war with us use their own local email account providers? Would a war with Iran lead to lots of people there losing access to their gmail accounts?

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**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-in-iran-use-american-email-providers/527683/2 "2010-02-04T17:28:17Z")

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I have an Iranian correspondent who has a gmail account.

[This link](http://www.switched.com/2007/09/17/iran-blocking-access-to-google-and-gmail/) notes:

> [@](#):
>
> We’ve known for quite some time that China has been mandating filtered Internet access for its citizens, recently going so far as to claim massive hacking attacks in order to rationalize even more strict controls. Now Iran is starting to do the same, blocking access to Google and Gmail from major ISPs.
> 
> Not long after news of the mass filtering hit the wire, Iran reversed the block, saying it was “Due to an error,” but left the door open for arbitrary filters in the future to prevent its citizens from “accessing decadent material posted abroad.”

I don’t know what would happen to Iranian access to US email providers in the not-very-likely event of an actual war.