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

144 points by arjmandi 7y ago

arjmandi 7y ago
There are lots of ways to provide free access to information to everyone. How do you expect other people to grow without giving them enough information to understand? Peace depends on the freedom
- Yizahi 7y ago
  Russia has semi-free access to information and majority of Russians applaud the wars that their governments wage against their neighbors.
  - chupasaurus 7y ago
    > Russia has semi-free access to information The only major resources which have permanent ban I know of are PornHub and LinkedIn (not including the sites which were blocked during the Hunt for Telegram, 95% of IPs have been removed after the body which operates the blacklist admitted their fail). > majority of Russians applaud the wars If you got the data from official Russian survey agencies or government, you can divide it by 0 twice. And don't forget that more than half of the population were born in USSR, a third part had been educated in soviet schools and a sixth part in current propaganda-driven schools (started in 2004) which makes a majority alone.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    In which country is that fundamentally different? Perception creates reality, short of traveling everywhere, you'll rely on the media for information. "We're being attacked", "we're on a peace keeping mission", "we're helping oppressed people", "We're fighting terrorists" are messages to get a population to support a war, and you will find a war time press in pretty much any country.
  - lifty 7y ago
    Just like Americans. Information freedom is no panacea but I think it helps. It’s just that it has a long lead time.
BorRagnarok 7y ago
I sincerely hope that the ongoing trade and business war will lead to nice new competitors to Android and iOS. The more countries they ban the higher the chances.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  This is the ironic part right here from a security perspective. If countries with sufficient resources like China or India or Russia would manage to establish a parallel ecosystem every country that even tangentially fears to end up on the USA's bad side has a strong incentive to hop on. America's companies and government might very well be giving up a very comfortable monopoly in some key sectors right now by encouraging new ecosystems out of necessity.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > America's companies and government might very well be giving up a very comfortable monopoly in some key sectors right now by encouraging new ecosystems out of necessity. At the same time, they are exploiting the monopoly (the US as a hole, that is). I suppose there's a line between "this is too much pain, I'm jumping ship" and "this is an acceptable amount of pain, I'll just pay my tribute and stay". I don't know whether they've crossed that line - especially when adopting a Chinese system won't really change a lot, it will only change who you depend on and whose wishes you need to comply with.
serf 7y ago
Maybe i'm bitter, or old, but my exclusion from a service is #1 reason to stay away from patronizing it. It's my opinion that the excluded, Iranians in the case of this article, should be having hard discussions about how they could get away from the likes of Google and Apple, not talks about how to integrate into an ecosystem that appears hostile. I understand the difficulty of that in practice, but integrating into a group that makes hostile world-changing decisions about groups of people based on geography and cultural differences seems to just empower that group further the next time they try to inject political maneuvering into their business -- making them an even larger threat to those it disagrees with in the future. In other words : Second verse, same as the first -- vote with your dollar, vote with your participation.
- arjmandi 7y ago
  That's another part of the story. That part is going on, struggling with its problems, especially with the Apple ecosystem. On the other side, there are conservatives in Iran too, that will be happy to be disconnected from the world. Taking effective steps from Google and Apple side can strengthen the peace dialogue for both sides.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > Maybe i'm bitter, or old, but my exclusion from a service is #1 reason to stay away from patronizing it. Sure, sure, but that's often not an option. If you're black and the only grocery store in town has a "no colored people" policy, you're out of luck. With the internet getting more and more centralized to a few large US corporations, you're in a similar spot. Banned from using their services? There's no alternative, because everybody else relies on them and will have their contracts canceled unless they also not do business with you.
mikejb 7y ago
Whilst I understand where the author is coming from, I'm not sure the companies are to blame here. > Two years ago, under the guise of complying with American sanctions against Iran — sanctions that have existed for decades — Apple started removing Iranian apps from its platform. Sanctions aren't always clear-cut, and if a buck is to be made, companies often try to stretch interpretations, try to fly under the radar or rely on the administration on being lenient in some aspects. So I'm not sure it's as simple as "sanctions existed before, so this must be the companies fault". I'd much rather see sanctions in this space limited/removed - but I hold no hopes for enabling moves in this geopolitical game of power.
- arjmandi 7y ago
  I don't think to blame the companies will have any effect either. We think these companies with their financial and market power can do better here to show that the tech community is not a part of political war. For example, there can be new companies in third countries with no legal obligation to US sanctions that can provide Apple and Google products to countries like Iran.
vmurthy 7y ago
The article mentions the kind of dependency on the Android and iOS platforms. I believe this is the right time for Iranian entrepreneurs to start porting or start installing Google free Android as a service on customers’ phones and then have their apps running on them. Some of the smarter ones can even exploit the political scene and say they’re giving a big middle finger to Western companies in favour of something they built locally. I’m assuming that the local politicians are at best indifferent to these measures.
miracle2k 7y ago
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.
- reallydontask 7y ago
  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
  - gruez 7y ago
    The gmail app doesn't complain that it can't connect to its servers?
    - EForEndeavour 7y ago
      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.
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  ...this sounds like a problem with centralizing the whole internet onto two or three servers -- excuse me, clouds.
Alir3z4 7y ago
It's not even about being in Iran, you can be anywhere and they will hunt you down and will try everything in their power to make you suffer more. I've written about my own experience at https://alireza.gonevis.com/how-i-didnt-get-my-first-paying-customer/ https://alireza.gonevis.com/how-i-didnt-get-my-first-paying-...
- sarbaz 7y ago
  I have to ask: why not find an Emirati friend you trust and have them be the owners of the business and you an employee? It sounds like it would be less costly.
  - Alir3z4 7y ago
    I had that Emirati friend to employ me on several companies of his and employment permit/visa was getting rejected or being "under processing" for +1 years. I've applied in Dubai, Ajman and Sharjah. All with the same result.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
There are alternative app stores available, for example: https://code.tutsplus.com/articles/10-alternative-android-app-stores--cms-20999 https://code.tutsplus.com/articles/10-alternative-android-ap... Does anyone know enough about the legal angle to talk about what it would take to develop an alternative platform not impacted by US sanctions?
- arjmandi 7y ago
  It's not just about the publishers, Apple and Google are being forced to ban any transaction from Iran. Iranian apps cannot be published from any provider around the world on Apple devices. Apple home, Google Chromecast and other appliances don't even work in Iran.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
rbrtdrmpc- 7y ago
Please to all the posters, stick your head out of your butt for a sec, this Iran thing is not something related to just some poor dev unable to publish on their store, it is a world wide dumb reaction all started from the USA foreign agenda. I'll give you an example to highlight how f'd up is the situation, in Italy, country with a quite respectful relation with Iran, banks started kicking out clients (with a one month notice) like my friend just because she was BORN in Teheran grew up in Italy (she's a fucking grown up working as a doctor), with dual italian/iranian citizenship due to the ius sanguinis (iranian mother, italian father) just because of the USA sanctions. If that's not WRONG, tell me what it is.
- catmanjan 7y ago
  That is straight up racism.
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    No it's not, Americans have had difficulties getting banking in Germany because banks fear having US customers exposes them to liabilities. It's all a huge pile of steaming manure, especially that the US considers companies in the US liable for things that their holding or child companies do in other countries - even if the behavior is fully legal in the place where it happens. And banks and other corporations with even the tiniest amount of US connections are rightfully scared of excessive punishments dealt by the US "judicial" system.
    - toong 7y ago
      Yes, it is.
    - mcherm 7y ago
      > This is straight up racism >> No it's not, [banks are scared if the US] Yes, banks are scared of the US. And perhaps the racism stems from the Italian bank, perhaps it stems from the US government, perhaps it stems from the Iranian definition of citizenship, perhaps all share a part of the blame. But regardless of who gets the blame, it most definitely IS straight up racism.
bronzeage 7y ago
Iranians need to realize that if they don't anything now about their oppressive regime, they might never be able to. look at China, with their social score, Mass face recognition tech and surveillance. If there were no sanctions, you would be heading the same way. even with santions, it's just a matter of time until every authoritarian Regime in the world is impossible to overthrow. China will export its 1984 tech to you, and it's just a question of when, and afterwards you can say good bye to the last chance you had to return to your country. it really sucks being there with sanctions but you need to take this historic opportunity because you might never have a second one.
- arjmandi 7y ago
  Although there are facts in your point, it's not all of it. China is also under sanction, and also under domestic internet filtering. Iran also has its own internet filtering. The point here is to reach out to Google and Apple and ask them to brainstorm on this problem, maybe we find a way to stop limiting humanity over politics.
- piokoch 7y ago
  I don't think the problem is "oppressive regime", Saudi Arabia is a much more oppressive and intolerant regime than Iran and USA is fine with that.
  - bronzeage 7y ago
    of course that's not USA's problem with Iran, it's Iranians problem. it's an impossibly difficult problem to solve, and the more economically stable the regime is, the more resources they can spend on their survivability. Saudi Arabia will probably never have a chance to overthrow, they have too much resources to detect and squash any resistance. Iran on the other hand is in a unique position of instability that they just might have a small chance of brighter future, small chance that will end the moment the sanctions will be lifted.
  - aoeaoeaoe 7y ago
    maybe because SA doesn't threaten US allies as much as Iran
sersi 7y ago
Trade sanction seem counterproductive to me, they breed resentment in a generation of young people, they breed poverty and that ultimately is what breeds extremism and fundamentalism. Shouldn't trade sanctions be more fine grained? Having part of the population be part of the global economy seems like the best way to eventually push for change in those countries...
- throwaway8879 7y ago
  The goal was never to end extremism or fundamentalism. Conflict is very very profitable to all sides except the common person. I guarantee that a lot of elite Iranians prefer war and conflict over peace, just like the US.
foobar_ 7y ago
I think app development is forbidden in the Quran.
- mayankkaizen 7y ago
  Given rather meaningful HN comments, yours is a bit cheap and against the spirit of HN.
  - foobar_ 7y ago
    Magic is forbidden in the Quran. App building is a form of magic, it is therefore forbidden.
jasonzemos 7y ago
These sanctions are designed to foster resentment in Iranians toward their government. The seeds of this resentment are already blossoming in the post-Iran/Iraq war generation developing these apps. This generation is simply not capable of conforming to the religious zeal required of them by the ayatollahs, sanctions or not. The days are numbered for the velāyat. The funds received by an Iranian civilian entrepreneur are still open to subjugation by the government. Without these funds, it will be more difficult for this government to destabilize neighboring states, blackmail the Sunnis across the gulf, and energize Hezbollah in their explicitly stated goals to genocide the Jews.
- tremon 7y ago
  These sanctions also make it impossible for Iranians to live their lives away for their government's supposed zeal. People trying to evade their government's yoke depend on external channels. Cut off these channels, and you only increase their dependence on their government. The funds received by an Iranian civilian entrepreneur are still open to subjugation by the government. So it's like civil asset forfeiture?
- atemerev 7y ago
  It doesn’t work this way. Iranian government use every mean of propaganda available to them to amplify the effects of sanctions on the civilian population, and make sure that everyone thinks that the US is to blame. Sanctions that touch civilians is the gift for propaganda. To the US credit, they were much more careful with applying sanctions to Russia: I am Russian (who lives abroad and doesn’t support our current government), and despite sanctions, I still can get the US visas, open a Github account, publish apps in App Store etc. I am really lucky I am not Iranian. I can’t do anything about the current government, Russia is not exactly a democracy, even if they maintain the motions and visibility of it.
skyrock 7y ago
They should stop calling usa the big white D first. Maybe even stop calling and doing world wide jihad. How know maybe their is relation
geff82 7y ago
The 80 million Iranians are currently held hostage by two entities. First, it is their own government (which is by far not the worst in the world, being in Iran feels more free than one would expect). Second, it is the USA. The US imposed sanctions put real stress on everyday life in Iran, they make transactions complicated to impossible, healthcare unsafe, flights totally unsafe (we had 2 emergencies in the last 12 flights between Iran and Germany) and they currently provoke a big brain drain and probably a new wave of refugees. From what I see the US sanctions are catastrophic for those 80 million people while the government is more or less untouched. For the sake of the family I married into and the genetic relatives of my children: stop that nonsense.
Yizahi 7y ago
Calling Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps the "Iranian Entrepreneurs" is an interesting point of view. And thinking that you can somehow decouple IRGC from normal Iranians and continue normal relations with the country is naive at best.
- arjmandi 7y ago
  Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps does any intention to publish something on Google and Apple platforms, on the contrary, they want to have their own platform. In other word, sanctions are aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
  - Yizahi 7y ago
    Any sanctions align with feudal regimes. How would countries punish such regimes without sanctions? Military operations? That's even worse. Personally I don't see a clear answer to such hard question.
    - stevenjohns 7y ago
      Pray tell: how did starving Iraqis to the point where 500,000 children under the age of five alone die from malnutrition[0] punish the Iraqi government? All it did was convert the secular military dictatorship into an extremist religious dictatorship and the effects of this punishment are still being felt today around the entire world[1]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_campaign#Consequences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_campaign#Consequences
thefounder 7y ago
The US is almost at war with Iran so I personally find the title quite silly. The iranian entrepreneurs may soon find themselves blasted by tomahawk missiles.
- arjmandi 7y ago
  Tensions hadn't turned into war yet, of course, nobody can predict there would be actually any war or not, it seems close. But even if there's a war, there are innocent people on both sides. We can't ignore the lives of innocent people because of conflicts between politicians.
  - thefounder 7y ago
    >> But even if there's a war, there are innocent people on both sides That's the very definition of war. Sending an open letter to Google and Apple seems a bit misplaced?
codingdave 7y ago
I get it - Sanctions hurt people. They are blunt tools when we need more refined dialogue. It is putting the pain of conflict between our governments onto the people, and not driving change. All these things are true. But this letter is written to the wrong people. This situation stems from a problem between our governments, and that is where it needs to be fixed. We have limited power to change this, but what power we do have is enacted by electing leaders who will work for a better solution. We get a chance to pick a US President again in just over a year. Please, when the opportunities arise over the next 18 months, get out, get involved, and vote.
- pnongrata 7y ago
  Meanwhile companies are hijacking governments by pouring billions of dollars directly or indirectly in order to push policies that benefit their profit-driven agenda. Big companies and governments go hand in hand, so the only way to enact some REAL change is to strike where the MONEY is and cut their economic power. A vote becomes worthless in a society where lobbying is legalized and media channels have economic interests in play.
  - codingdave 7y ago
    > strike where the MONEY is What does that mean, exactly? What specific actions do you propose people take?
    - pnongrata 7y ago
      A few examples of things we could do to stop a little the bleeding out of democracies: 1. Outlaw lobbying; 2. Tax the ass off the filthy rich; 3. Break up big corporations in tech, oil, media, you name it. No more monopolies or monopsonies; 4. Change the electorate system. 5. Increase work conditions. Higher wages, jobs availability, social welfare, etc. The obvious takeaway is that if you reduce wealth inequality you get a healthier society and democracy.
      - codingdave 7y ago
gr8t3stally 7y ago
There is no reason America shouldn't have an ally, or at least a trading partner, in Iran. The ONLY reason they don't is because of the influence of the lsrael lobby over every level of US foreign policy.
cwperkins 7y ago
This is a touchy subject because it gets into the realm of the people are not the regime. Its terrible that everyone gets wrapped up in international conflicts, but I always have to ask what is an alternative plan? In the case with China, no amount of diplomacy would have worked to get them to renegotiate on trade. I'm not sure about other posters on HN, but I know I personally am strongly for stopping nuclear proliferation around the world and it doesn't end with Iran. I want to see India and Pakistan give up their weapons because the doomsday clock there always seems its a minute to midnight. Its a tough, controversial subject and I feel for innocent people caught in the crosshairs.
- arjmandi 7y ago
  That's the dream, all we need right now is support from the tech community to come to an agreement for opening new windows for innocent people who have contributed a lot to science, tech, art and culture of the entire world. They can make a change, a real difference
- dingoegret 7y ago
  You'll never get them to give it up. The US and China are major threats and the actions of those two powers have bolstered not diminished the idea that countries need nuclear deterrent. If the US wants to change things, it must change it's behavior.
- miracle2k 7y ago
  Then you should know that the people who wanted the US to drop the Non-Proliferation deal with Iran known as the JCPOA did so because they are willing to put geopolitical considerations, specifically alignment with Israel and Saudi Arabia, before proliferation concerns. To put it another way, if the had to choose, they would choose a weak isolated Iran with nukes over a strong one that could build nukes but doesn't. You see that happening right now with Iran ramping up enrichment again, and if they play their cards right, they can absolutely go the North Korea route and get it done.
- calcifer 7y ago
  > I personally am strongly for stopping nuclear proliferation around the world > I want to see India and Pakistan give up their weapons Since you are so strongly against nuclear weapons, wouldn't you agree the US should lead by example instead of "do as I say, not as I do" (which is the current policy) and start by giving up its own nukes? Be the change you want to see in the world and all that.
perfmode 7y ago
Judging from the quality of discourse in this thread, Hackernews are evidently some of the least enlightened people I encounter in a peer-group setting.
wazoox 7y ago
The author of the great app "City Producer" is French, born in Iran. He fled Iran as a child 40 years ago. He was invited to present his app to Tim Cook at Apple's HQ; however as he's born in Iran he can't enter the US, any time, ever. Never mind he and his parents actually fled the regime. Never mind he isn't an Iran passport holder. This is US foreign policy. Bullish and stupid. So this isn't really a problem with Apple or Google; it's a problem with the way US enforces sanctions on countries.
cinquemb 7y ago
Can't really expect the corporate tentacles of the National Security™ apparatus to comply, especially when there's a slew of bright eye'd folks willing to step up to the plate to pay down their student loans by drinking the kool-aid and lube up to jump in bed with such corporates. Best to hope for in this environment is to expect nation states to waste more and more resources toward such unproductive endeavors and exploit the gaps.
espeed 7y ago
The 80 million Iranians are currently held hostage by two entities. First, it is their own government (which is by far not the worse in the world, being in Iran feels more free than one would expect). The Iranian people are not the target -- Persia is a rich ancient civilization that's being repressed -- the West knows this and wants to see the Iranian people's massive creative potential unleashed. Sanctions are designed as a non-kinetic force applied to pressure the Iranian government into a weakened position. The Iranian people play a significant role in amplifying the pressure. The louder and more vocal their voice becomes, the more pressure their government will feel. If the Iranian people want a change, the change has to come from within. At some point, when the people amplify the pressure beyond the point the government can withstand, the situation tips and the people force their government to release. This is the effect the sanctions are designed to create.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > The Iranian people are not the target -- Persia is a rich ancient civilization that's being repressed -- the West knows this and wants to see the Iranian people's massive creative potential unleashed. Given that "the West" is largely responsible for installing/supporting repressive Regimes in Iran, that sounds a bit too naive. "Wants to replace the oppressive Regime with an oppressive Regime that will do their bidding" sounds closer to the truth to my ears. Given the recent examples US led "Regime Change" in the area (Egypt, Libya, Iraq, to a lesser degree Syria), as an Iranian, I'd have some reservations about lofty speeches.
  - espeed 7y ago
    The US people fought several wars to free itself and establish its nation. And then it went back to Europe and fought WWI and WWII to ensure it's free. Iran is one the few places on Earth remaining to be free. But freedom is a choice, and the Iranian people have to choose it.
    - eoic 7y ago
      This is ironic, right?
sendrome 7y ago
We tried to use Stripe Atlas to open a company in USA because Stripe is not yet available in India. From the start they bombarded us questions like, ‘How will you prevent users from Iran/N.Korea etc from using your product.’ It went on for about 3 months. We gave up and switched to Singapore. Couldn’t have been happier. Singapore is too damn good for business.
joeblau 7y ago
Can someone who is educated on the subject help me understand what the sanctions are about? I've tried Google, but I'm sure HN'ers have a higher IQ/EQ on average than whatever is on the first page of Google results.
bufferoverflow 7y ago
And scientists. I recently got contacted about an old genetics project that stopped working because Java applets. I told them I can reimplement it in JS, just pay for my time. They said they would love to, but they are an Iranian institute, and I'm a US citizen. So it's a lose-lose situation.
haojixu 7y ago
This get me thinking: are Multinational Companies actually multinational? If their HQ is in one place and they have to operate globally either under jurisdiction or under board pressures of that place, isn't it super dangerous for the people that buy into their "multinational" narrative and place their trust under the assumptions that infrastructure would only seldomly be biased? EDIT: "seldomly" should be "to a less extent"
mohammdaminad 7y ago
There is no doupt that these sanctions target the people , We live in 20 century , we are tired of governments , USA or Iran is not matter , both side are doing mistakes, lets people make decisions , you are not in charge.

144 points by arjmandi 7y ago

There are lots of ways to provide free access to information to everyone. How do you expect other people to grow without giving them enough information to understand? Peace depends on the freedom

Yizahi 7y ago
Russia has semi-free access to information and majority of Russians applaud the wars that their governments wage against their neighbors.
- chupasaurus 7y ago
  > Russia has semi-free access to information The only major resources which have permanent ban I know of are PornHub and LinkedIn (not including the sites which were blocked during the Hunt for Telegram, 95% of IPs have been removed after the body which operates the blacklist admitted their fail). > majority of Russians applaud the wars If you got the data from official Russian survey agencies or government, you can divide it by 0 twice. And don't forget that more than half of the population were born in USSR, a third part had been educated in soviet schools and a sixth part in current propaganda-driven schools (started in 2004) which makes a majority alone.
- luckylion 7y ago
  In which country is that fundamentally different? Perception creates reality, short of traveling everywhere, you'll rely on the media for information. "We're being attacked", "we're on a peace keeping mission", "we're helping oppressed people", "We're fighting terrorists" are messages to get a population to support a war, and you will find a war time press in pretty much any country.
- lifty 7y ago
  Just like Americans. Information freedom is no panacea but I think it helps. It’s just that it has a long lead time.

BorRagnarok 7y ago

I sincerely hope that the ongoing trade and business war will lead to nice new competitors to Android and iOS. The more countries they ban the higher the chances.

Barrin92 7y ago
This is the ironic part right here from a security perspective. If countries with sufficient resources like China or India or Russia would manage to establish a parallel ecosystem every country that even tangentially fears to end up on the USA's bad side has a strong incentive to hop on. America's companies and government might very well be giving up a very comfortable monopoly in some key sectors right now by encouraging new ecosystems out of necessity.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > America's companies and government might very well be giving up a very comfortable monopoly in some key sectors right now by encouraging new ecosystems out of necessity. At the same time, they are exploiting the monopoly (the US as a hole, that is). I suppose there's a line between "this is too much pain, I'm jumping ship" and "this is an acceptable amount of pain, I'll just pay my tribute and stay". I don't know whether they've crossed that line - especially when adopting a Chinese system won't really change a lot, it will only change who you depend on and whose wishes you need to comply with.

serf 7y ago

Maybe i'm bitter, or old, but my exclusion from a service is #1 reason to stay away from patronizing it. It's my opinion that the excluded, Iranians in the case of this article, should be having hard discussions about how they could get away from the likes of Google and Apple, not talks about how to integrate into an ecosystem that appears hostile. I understand the difficulty of that in practice, but integrating into a group that makes hostile world-changing decisions about groups of people based on geography and cultural differences seems to just empower that group further the next time they try to inject political maneuvering into their business -- making them an even larger threat to those it disagrees with in the future. In other words : Second verse, same as the first -- vote with your dollar, vote with your participation.

arjmandi 7y ago
That's another part of the story. That part is going on, struggling with its problems, especially with the Apple ecosystem. On the other side, there are conservatives in Iran too, that will be happy to be disconnected from the world. Taking effective steps from Google and Apple side can strengthen the peace dialogue for both sides.
luckylion 7y ago
> Maybe i'm bitter, or old, but my exclusion from a service is #1 reason to stay away from patronizing it. Sure, sure, but that's often not an option. If you're black and the only grocery store in town has a "no colored people" policy, you're out of luck. With the internet getting more and more centralized to a few large US corporations, you're in a similar spot. Banned from using their services? There's no alternative, because everybody else relies on them and will have their contracts canceled unless they also not do business with you.

mikejb 7y ago

Whilst I understand where the author is coming from, I'm not sure the companies are to blame here. > Two years ago, under the guise of complying with American sanctions against Iran — sanctions that have existed for decades — Apple started removing Iranian apps from its platform. Sanctions aren't always clear-cut, and if a buck is to be made, companies often try to stretch interpretations, try to fly under the radar or rely on the administration on being lenient in some aspects. So I'm not sure it's as simple as "sanctions existed before, so this must be the companies fault". I'd much rather see sanctions in this space limited/removed - but I hold no hopes for enabling moves in this geopolitical game of power.

arjmandi 7y ago
I don't think to blame the companies will have any effect either. We think these companies with their financial and market power can do better here to show that the tech community is not a part of political war. For example, there can be new companies in third countries with no legal obligation to US sanctions that can provide Apple and Google products to countries like Iran.

vmurthy 7y ago

The article mentions the kind of dependency on the Android and iOS platforms. I believe this is the right time for Iranian entrepreneurs to start porting or start installing Google free Android as a service on customers’ phones and then have their apps running on them. Some of the smarter ones can even exploit the political scene and say they’re giving a big middle finger to Western companies in favour of something they built locally. I’m assuming that the local politicians are at best indifferent to these measures.

miracle2k 7y ago

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.

reallydontask 7y ago
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
- gruez 7y ago
  The gmail app doesn't complain that it can't connect to its servers?
  - EForEndeavour 7y ago
    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.
ForHackernews 7y ago
...this sounds like a problem with centralizing the whole internet onto two or three servers -- excuse me, clouds.

Alir3z4 7y ago

It's not even about being in Iran, you can be anywhere and they will hunt you down and will try everything in their power to make you suffer more. I've written about my own experience at https://alireza.gonevis.com/how-i-didnt-get-my-first-paying-customer/ https://alireza.gonevis.com/how-i-didnt-get-my-first-paying-...

sarbaz 7y ago
I have to ask: why not find an Emirati friend you trust and have them be the owners of the business and you an employee? It sounds like it would be less costly.
- Alir3z4 7y ago
  I had that Emirati friend to employ me on several companies of his and employment permit/visa was getting rejected or being "under processing" for +1 years. I've applied in Dubai, Ajman and Sharjah. All with the same result.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

There are alternative app stores available, for example: https://code.tutsplus.com/articles/10-alternative-android-app-stores--cms-20999 https://code.tutsplus.com/articles/10-alternative-android-ap... Does anyone know enough about the legal angle to talk about what it would take to develop an alternative platform not impacted by US sanctions?

arjmandi 7y ago
It's not just about the publishers, Apple and Google are being forced to ban any transaction from Iran. Iranian apps cannot be published from any provider around the world on Apple devices. Apple home, Google Chromecast and other appliances don't even work in Iran.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

rbrtdrmpc- 7y ago

Please to all the posters, stick your head out of your butt for a sec, this Iran thing is not something related to just some poor dev unable to publish on their store, it is a world wide dumb reaction all started from the USA foreign agenda. I'll give you an example to highlight how f'd up is the situation, in Italy, country with a quite respectful relation with Iran, banks started kicking out clients (with a one month notice) like my friend just because she was BORN in Teheran grew up in Italy (she's a fucking grown up working as a doctor), with dual italian/iranian citizenship due to the ius sanguinis (iranian mother, italian father) just because of the USA sanctions. If that's not WRONG, tell me what it is.

catmanjan 7y ago
That is straight up racism.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  No it's not, Americans have had difficulties getting banking in Germany because banks fear having US customers exposes them to liabilities. It's all a huge pile of steaming manure, especially that the US considers companies in the US liable for things that their holding or child companies do in other countries - even if the behavior is fully legal in the place where it happens. And banks and other corporations with even the tiniest amount of US connections are rightfully scared of excessive punishments dealt by the US "judicial" system.
  - toong 7y ago
    Yes, it is.
  - mcherm 7y ago
    > This is straight up racism >> No it's not, [banks are scared if the US] Yes, banks are scared of the US. And perhaps the racism stems from the Italian bank, perhaps it stems from the US government, perhaps it stems from the Iranian definition of citizenship, perhaps all share a part of the blame. But regardless of who gets the blame, it most definitely IS straight up racism.

bronzeage 7y ago

Iranians need to realize that if they don't anything now about their oppressive regime, they might never be able to. look at China, with their social score, Mass face recognition tech and surveillance. If there were no sanctions, you would be heading the same way. even with santions, it's just a matter of time until every authoritarian Regime in the world is impossible to overthrow. China will export its 1984 tech to you, and it's just a question of when, and afterwards you can say good bye to the last chance you had to return to your country. it really sucks being there with sanctions but you need to take this historic opportunity because you might never have a second one.

arjmandi 7y ago
Although there are facts in your point, it's not all of it. China is also under sanction, and also under domestic internet filtering. Iran also has its own internet filtering. The point here is to reach out to Google and Apple and ask them to brainstorm on this problem, maybe we find a way to stop limiting humanity over politics.
piokoch 7y ago
I don't think the problem is "oppressive regime", Saudi Arabia is a much more oppressive and intolerant regime than Iran and USA is fine with that.
- bronzeage 7y ago
  of course that's not USA's problem with Iran, it's Iranians problem. it's an impossibly difficult problem to solve, and the more economically stable the regime is, the more resources they can spend on their survivability. Saudi Arabia will probably never have a chance to overthrow, they have too much resources to detect and squash any resistance. Iran on the other hand is in a unique position of instability that they just might have a small chance of brighter future, small chance that will end the moment the sanctions will be lifted.
- aoeaoeaoe 7y ago
  maybe because SA doesn't threaten US allies as much as Iran

sersi 7y ago

Trade sanction seem counterproductive to me, they breed resentment in a generation of young people, they breed poverty and that ultimately is what breeds extremism and fundamentalism. Shouldn't trade sanctions be more fine grained? Having part of the population be part of the global economy seems like the best way to eventually push for change in those countries...

throwaway8879 7y ago
The goal was never to end extremism or fundamentalism. Conflict is very very profitable to all sides except the common person. I guarantee that a lot of elite Iranians prefer war and conflict over peace, just like the US.

foobar_ 7y ago

I think app development is forbidden in the Quran.

mayankkaizen 7y ago
Given rather meaningful HN comments, yours is a bit cheap and against the spirit of HN.
- foobar_ 7y ago
  Magic is forbidden in the Quran. App building is a form of magic, it is therefore forbidden.

jasonzemos 7y ago

These sanctions are designed to foster resentment in Iranians toward their government. The seeds of this resentment are already blossoming in the post-Iran/Iraq war generation developing these apps. This generation is simply not capable of conforming to the religious zeal required of them by the ayatollahs, sanctions or not. The days are numbered for the velāyat. The funds received by an Iranian civilian entrepreneur are still open to subjugation by the government. Without these funds, it will be more difficult for this government to destabilize neighboring states, blackmail the Sunnis across the gulf, and energize Hezbollah in their explicitly stated goals to genocide the Jews.

tremon 7y ago
These sanctions also make it impossible for Iranians to live their lives away for their government's supposed zeal. People trying to evade their government's yoke depend on external channels. Cut off these channels, and you only increase their dependence on their government. The funds received by an Iranian civilian entrepreneur are still open to subjugation by the government. So it's like civil asset forfeiture?
atemerev 7y ago
It doesn’t work this way. Iranian government use every mean of propaganda available to them to amplify the effects of sanctions on the civilian population, and make sure that everyone thinks that the US is to blame. Sanctions that touch civilians is the gift for propaganda. To the US credit, they were much more careful with applying sanctions to Russia: I am Russian (who lives abroad and doesn’t support our current government), and despite sanctions, I still can get the US visas, open a Github account, publish apps in App Store etc. I am really lucky I am not Iranian. I can’t do anything about the current government, Russia is not exactly a democracy, even if they maintain the motions and visibility of it.

skyrock 7y ago

They should stop calling usa the big white D first. Maybe even stop calling and doing world wide jihad. How know maybe their is relation

geff82 7y ago

The 80 million Iranians are currently held hostage by two entities. First, it is their own government (which is by far not the worst in the world, being in Iran feels more free than one would expect). Second, it is the USA. The US imposed sanctions put real stress on everyday life in Iran, they make transactions complicated to impossible, healthcare unsafe, flights totally unsafe (we had 2 emergencies in the last 12 flights between Iran and Germany) and they currently provoke a big brain drain and probably a new wave of refugees. From what I see the US sanctions are catastrophic for those 80 million people while the government is more or less untouched. For the sake of the family I married into and the genetic relatives of my children: stop that nonsense.

Yizahi 7y ago

Calling Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps the "Iranian Entrepreneurs" is an interesting point of view. And thinking that you can somehow decouple IRGC from normal Iranians and continue normal relations with the country is naive at best.

arjmandi 7y ago
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps does any intention to publish something on Google and Apple platforms, on the contrary, they want to have their own platform. In other word, sanctions are aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
- Yizahi 7y ago
  Any sanctions align with feudal regimes. How would countries punish such regimes without sanctions? Military operations? That's even worse. Personally I don't see a clear answer to such hard question.
  - stevenjohns 7y ago
    Pray tell: how did starving Iraqis to the point where 500,000 children under the age of five alone die from malnutrition[0] punish the Iraqi government? All it did was convert the secular military dictatorship into an extremist religious dictatorship and the effects of this punishment are still being felt today around the entire world[1]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_campaign#Consequences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_campaign#Consequences

thefounder 7y ago

The US is almost at war with Iran so I personally find the title quite silly. The iranian entrepreneurs may soon find themselves blasted by tomahawk missiles.

arjmandi 7y ago
Tensions hadn't turned into war yet, of course, nobody can predict there would be actually any war or not, it seems close. But even if there's a war, there are innocent people on both sides. We can't ignore the lives of innocent people because of conflicts between politicians.
- thefounder 7y ago
  >> But even if there's a war, there are innocent people on both sides That's the very definition of war. Sending an open letter to Google and Apple seems a bit misplaced?

codingdave 7y ago

I get it - Sanctions hurt people. They are blunt tools when we need more refined dialogue. It is putting the pain of conflict between our governments onto the people, and not driving change. All these things are true. But this letter is written to the wrong people. This situation stems from a problem between our governments, and that is where it needs to be fixed. We have limited power to change this, but what power we do have is enacted by electing leaders who will work for a better solution. We get a chance to pick a US President again in just over a year. Please, when the opportunities arise over the next 18 months, get out, get involved, and vote.

pnongrata 7y ago
Meanwhile companies are hijacking governments by pouring billions of dollars directly or indirectly in order to push policies that benefit their profit-driven agenda. Big companies and governments go hand in hand, so the only way to enact some REAL change is to strike where the MONEY is and cut their economic power. A vote becomes worthless in a society where lobbying is legalized and media channels have economic interests in play.
- codingdave 7y ago
  > strike where the MONEY is What does that mean, exactly? What specific actions do you propose people take?
  - pnongrata 7y ago
    A few examples of things we could do to stop a little the bleeding out of democracies: 1. Outlaw lobbying; 2. Tax the ass off the filthy rich; 3. Break up big corporations in tech, oil, media, you name it. No more monopolies or monopsonies; 4. Change the electorate system. 5. Increase work conditions. Higher wages, jobs availability, social welfare, etc. The obvious takeaway is that if you reduce wealth inequality you get a healthier society and democracy.
    - codingdave 7y ago

gr8t3stally 7y ago

There is no reason America shouldn't have an ally, or at least a trading partner, in Iran. The ONLY reason they don't is because of the influence of the lsrael lobby over every level of US foreign policy.

cwperkins 7y ago

This is a touchy subject because it gets into the realm of the people are not the regime. Its terrible that everyone gets wrapped up in international conflicts, but I always have to ask what is an alternative plan? In the case with China, no amount of diplomacy would have worked to get them to renegotiate on trade. I'm not sure about other posters on HN, but I know I personally am strongly for stopping nuclear proliferation around the world and it doesn't end with Iran. I want to see India and Pakistan give up their weapons because the doomsday clock there always seems its a minute to midnight. Its a tough, controversial subject and I feel for innocent people caught in the crosshairs.

arjmandi 7y ago
That's the dream, all we need right now is support from the tech community to come to an agreement for opening new windows for innocent people who have contributed a lot to science, tech, art and culture of the entire world. They can make a change, a real difference
dingoegret 7y ago
You'll never get them to give it up. The US and China are major threats and the actions of those two powers have bolstered not diminished the idea that countries need nuclear deterrent. If the US wants to change things, it must change it's behavior.
miracle2k 7y ago
Then you should know that the people who wanted the US to drop the Non-Proliferation deal with Iran known as the JCPOA did so because they are willing to put geopolitical considerations, specifically alignment with Israel and Saudi Arabia, before proliferation concerns. To put it another way, if the had to choose, they would choose a weak isolated Iran with nukes over a strong one that could build nukes but doesn't. You see that happening right now with Iran ramping up enrichment again, and if they play their cards right, they can absolutely go the North Korea route and get it done.
calcifer 7y ago
> I personally am strongly for stopping nuclear proliferation around the world > I want to see India and Pakistan give up their weapons Since you are so strongly against nuclear weapons, wouldn't you agree the US should lead by example instead of "do as I say, not as I do" (which is the current policy) and start by giving up its own nukes? Be the change you want to see in the world and all that.

perfmode 7y ago

Judging from the quality of discourse in this thread, Hackernews are evidently some of the least enlightened people I encounter in a peer-group setting.

wazoox 7y ago

The author of the great app "City Producer" is French, born in Iran. He fled Iran as a child 40 years ago. He was invited to present his app to Tim Cook at Apple's HQ; however as he's born in Iran he can't enter the US, any time, ever. Never mind he and his parents actually fled the regime. Never mind he isn't an Iran passport holder. This is US foreign policy. Bullish and stupid. So this isn't really a problem with Apple or Google; it's a problem with the way US enforces sanctions on countries.

cinquemb 7y ago

Can't really expect the corporate tentacles of the National Security™ apparatus to comply, especially when there's a slew of bright eye'd folks willing to step up to the plate to pay down their student loans by drinking the kool-aid and lube up to jump in bed with such corporates. Best to hope for in this environment is to expect nation states to waste more and more resources toward such unproductive endeavors and exploit the gaps.

espeed 7y ago

The 80 million Iranians are currently held hostage by two entities. First, it is their own government (which is by far not the worse in the world, being in Iran feels more free than one would expect). The Iranian people are not the target -- Persia is a rich ancient civilization that's being repressed -- the West knows this and wants to see the Iranian people's massive creative potential unleashed. Sanctions are designed as a non-kinetic force applied to pressure the Iranian government into a weakened position. The Iranian people play a significant role in amplifying the pressure. The louder and more vocal their voice becomes, the more pressure their government will feel. If the Iranian people want a change, the change has to come from within. At some point, when the people amplify the pressure beyond the point the government can withstand, the situation tips and the people force their government to release. This is the effect the sanctions are designed to create.

luckylion 7y ago
> The Iranian people are not the target -- Persia is a rich ancient civilization that's being repressed -- the West knows this and wants to see the Iranian people's massive creative potential unleashed. Given that "the West" is largely responsible for installing/supporting repressive Regimes in Iran, that sounds a bit too naive. "Wants to replace the oppressive Regime with an oppressive Regime that will do their bidding" sounds closer to the truth to my ears. Given the recent examples US led "Regime Change" in the area (Egypt, Libya, Iraq, to a lesser degree Syria), as an Iranian, I'd have some reservations about lofty speeches.
- espeed 7y ago
  The US people fought several wars to free itself and establish its nation. And then it went back to Europe and fought WWI and WWII to ensure it's free. Iran is one the few places on Earth remaining to be free. But freedom is a choice, and the Iranian people have to choose it.
  - eoic 7y ago
    This is ironic, right?

sendrome 7y ago

We tried to use Stripe Atlas to open a company in USA because Stripe is not yet available in India. From the start they bombarded us questions like, ‘How will you prevent users from Iran/N.Korea etc from using your product.’ It went on for about 3 months. We gave up and switched to Singapore. Couldn’t have been happier. Singapore is too damn good for business.

joeblau 7y ago

Can someone who is educated on the subject help me understand what the sanctions are about? I've tried Google, but I'm sure HN'ers have a higher IQ/EQ on average than whatever is on the first page of Google results.

bufferoverflow 7y ago

And scientists. I recently got contacted about an old genetics project that stopped working because Java applets. I told them I can reimplement it in JS, just pay for my time. They said they would love to, but they are an Iranian institute, and I'm a US citizen. So it's a lose-lose situation.

haojixu 7y ago

This get me thinking: are Multinational Companies actually multinational? If their HQ is in one place and they have to operate globally either under jurisdiction or under board pressures of that place, isn't it super dangerous for the people that buy into their "multinational" narrative and place their trust under the assumptions that infrastructure would only seldomly be biased? EDIT: "seldomly" should be "to a less extent"

mohammdaminad 7y ago

There is no doupt that these sanctions target the people , We live in 20 century , we are tired of governments , USA or Iran is not matter , both side are doing mistakes, lets people make decisions , you are not in charge.