Facebook wins back its Iranian domain

Ap
Wednesday 29 July 2009 10:14 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Social networking site Facebook has won control of a web address using its name and the country suffix .ir for Iran.

The U.N.'s World Intellectual Property Organization says current owner Majid Karimian Ghannad of Yazd, Iran, has to transfer the domain name - facebook.ir - to the U.S.-based site.

The Geneva-based UN agency says Ghannad registered the domain in bad faith and had no right to the name.

According to the ruling published yesterday he claimed to want to use it for selling books.

Facebook is among a number of social networking sites blocked by Iranian authorities.

Internet users are still able to access it by using anti-filtering software.

The company recently launched a Farsi language version of the site.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in