The new policy is part of the Administration’s effort to break down what President Obama on Now Ruz called the “electronic curtain” that has desc`ended on Iran and is cutting its people off from the outside world.
The department said the new rule “authorizes the exportation … of services incident to the exchange of personal communications over the Internet, such as instant messaging, chat and email, social networking, sharing of photos and movies, web browsing and blogging, provided that such services are publicly available at no cost to the user.”
In other words, the software may be given to Iranians, but not sold to Iranians.
A fact sheet listed the following eight categories of service and software that are now freed for delivery to Iran:
• Personal communications (e.g., Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Microsoft Live, Skype).
• Updates to personal communications software.
• Personal data storage (e.g., Dropbox).
• Browsers/Updates (e.g., Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer).
• Plug-ins (e.g., Flashplayer, Shockwave, Java).
• Document readers (e.g., Acrobat Reader).
• Free mobile apps related to personal communications.
• RSS feed readers and aggregators (e.g., Google Feed Burner).