When we talk about rules, in Iran, sometimes we do not really mean rules. Take the new mandatory law which literally forces all bloggers and website owners to register. The new law gives a two month period, after which the unregistered sites will be called to have “unknown identity“. What the consequences of having such a site will be, no one knows, yet.
The registration process begins with an email address, about which the rule has specific guidelines (see). According to the how-to-register, deliberately given only in Persian, sites which have a domain name (say www.kamangir.com) need to create an email address starting with “info@” (say info@kamangir.com). They will be contacted using that email address. Send an email to info@ahmadinejad.ir to see it doesn’t exist. What does that mean? It means Ahmadinejad has not registered his blog yet.
p.s.
1-For your information, the registrant is even asked for his/her cellphone number, probably in case big news starts spreading and they need to call you to let you know you won’t really like to talk about it.
2- I just found out that blogs which do not have a unique domain name, like this blog, do not have to register (see).
3- A long list of technical problems of samandehi are given in here. In short, it is a copy of this webpage. The blogger mentions that this may be a violation of copyright and might result in shutting down the site.
4- More about the technical problems (see).
we`r Welcome!
Comment by robo — January 2, 2007 @ 1:12 am
Happy New Year, Kamanjir.
Just heard about this interesting development. Quite apart from important civil liberty concerns, to me it would seem that all the administrative-bureaucratic effort expended in this registration would be wasted given that, as you note, presumably most blogs go through WordPress or blogger or typepad and will not have their own domain.
I watch further developments with interest.
Comment by peoplesgeography — January 2, 2007 @ 7:22 am
اسم شما Ú†ÛØŸ
اسم من Ø¹ÛŒØ¯Ú¯Ø§Û Ø§Ø³ØªÛ” سلام علیکم۔
Translation: What is your name?
My name if Aidgah. Hi.
Comment by Aidgah — January 2, 2007 @ 10:08 am
[...] writes about the new law in Iran which wants to force all blogs and sites owners get registered.They have to provide a lot of personal datas such as telephone number. He says the new mandatory law [...]
Pingback by Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Iran:A new law wants to force bloggers to get registered — January 2, 2007 @ 4:33 pm
Aidgah,
I am Arash, nice to meet you. :)
Comment by kamangir — January 2, 2007 @ 6:18 pm
peoplesgeography,
Yes, I think you are right. I am also really eager to see how this story develops.
Comment by kamangir — January 2, 2007 @ 6:22 pm
[...] Chinese government’s path of controlling blogs and web sites. Owners of blogs and sites have been asked to register their web site or blog within two months. At the time of registering, private information such as [...]
Pingback by Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Bloggers on the Iran government’s efforts to enforce registration of blogs and web sites — January 10, 2007 @ 9:13 am
Got started in blogging recently and set up my blog. Just learning as much as I can… could do with some useful links.
Jay
Comment by Jay — January 25, 2007 @ 8:14 am