Google, citing "always evolving" U.S. trade restrictions on Cuba, on Wednesday announced that its Chrome browser is now available for the first time to Internet users in the country.
"U.S. export controls and sanctions can sometimes limit the products available in certain countries. But these trade restrictions are always evolving, and over time, we've been working to figure out how to make more tools available in sanctioned countries," Pedro Less Andrade, Google's director of Government Affairs & Public Policy for Latin America, wrote on the Google Public Policy blog.
In the brief blog post, Less Andrade noted that over the past few years, Google has also made Chrome and other Web products available in other U.S.-sanctioned countries like Syria and Iran. The company specifically cited the lifting of certain trade sanctions by the U.S. when it announced the availability of Chrome and other Internet tools in Iran, but did not mention any similar policy changes in Wednesday's announcement regarding Cuba.
Google made Chrome, Google Earth, and Picasa available to Syrian users in May 2012 and first offered the same trio of Internet tools for Iranian users to download in January 2011.
The Internet giant had reportedly been blocking downloads of the Chrome browser in both Middle Eastern countries since 2008, according to PBS, while use of Chrome in Sudan was blocked a year earlier.
In announcing the decision to make Chrome and the other Internet tools available in Syria, Google philosophized, "Free expression is a fundamental human right and a core value of our company." The explanation for unblocking downloads of those Web products in Iran got more topical.
"During the protests that erupted in Iran following the disputed presidential election in June 2009, the central government in Tehran deported all foreign journalists, shut down traditional media outlets, closed off print journalism and disrupted cell phone lines," Google's Neil Martin wrote in a blog post at the time.
"The government also infiltrated networks, posing as activists and using false identities to round up dissidents. In spite of this, the sharing of information using the Internet prevailed. YouTube and Twitter were cited by journalists, activists, and bloggers as the best source for first-hand accounts and on-the-scene footage of the protests and violence across the country. At the time, though, U.S. export controls and sanctions programs prohibited software downloads to Iran.
"Some of those export restrictions have now been lifted and today, for the first time, we're making Google Earth, Picasa, and Chrome available for download in Iran."
For its part, the Iranian government has rattled its own digital saber at Google in the past, threatening legal action in 2012 over the company's decision to remove the term "Persian Gulf" from Google Maps in an effort to remain neutral in disputes over the proper name for the body of water separating the Iranian plateau from the Arabian Peninsula.
Meanwhile, even as Google expands the availability of its products in such places, the company's difficulties with China remain largely unresolved. In recent years, the Chinese government has temporarily blocked Google services in the country, while Google has expanded search encryption to Web searches made by Chinese users to the chagrin of Beijing.