WASHINGTON -- Iranian users are having trouble accessing Gmail, Google said following a report that Iran's telecommunications agency had permanently suspended the Internet giant's email service.
"We have heard from users in Iran that they are having trouble accessing Gmail," Google said in a statement on Wednesday.
"We can confirm a sharp drop in traffic and we have looked at our own networks and found that they are working properly," the Mountain View, California-based company said. "Whenever we encounter blocks in our services we try to resolve them as quickly as possibly because we strongly believe that people everywhere should have the ability to communicate freely online," Google said.
"Sadly, sometimes it is not within our control," it added.