"Iran blocked access to Google's popular and relatively secure Gmail service Monday amid first steps by the Islamic republic to establish a walled-off national intranet separate from the worldwide Internet. Access to Google's search page was also restricted to its unsecured version, web users in Iran found. Attempts to access it using a secure protocol (https) were also blocked. The curbs were announced in a mobile phone text message quoting Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, an adviser to Iran's public prosecutor's office and the secretary of an official group tasked with detecting Internet content deemed illegal."

Click here to read the full article on Al Akhbar English