Iran to block all web access and establish a national intranet

The Iranian government is to block all access to the world wide web for internet users in the country and has announced plans to establish in its place a national intranet of approved websites. According to a report from International Business Times, the Iranian minister for Information and Communications Technology, Reza Taghipour, said that the first phase of the project will take place next month, with the blocking of popular search engines, e-mail services and social networking sites such as Google, Yahoo, Hotmail and Google Plus. These sites will be replaced by government-endorsed local versions Iran Mail and Iran Search. Under the second phase of the scheme, from June this year all international websites will be blocked and users will only be able to visit sites on a national intranet. The country is already subject to a lengthy list of websites and web content which must be blocked by local ISPs.