Week 1, Blog 1 : Restriction of Windows Live Messanger On The Embargoed Countries

Microsoft recently is blocking its Messenger ,Windows Live Messenger service, to the five embargoed countries such as Cuba, Syria, Iran, Sudan and North Korea. On Friday Cuba criticized Microsoft on blocking its instant messaging service. This is the truly “harsh”treatment of Washington on banning these countries on transfer of technology. As one of the director of Windows Live Product Management said “This is not a new change”, Microsoft had made that changes since last year with the last product release of Windows Live Messenger. I, one of the users of this product, agree that this is the harsh treatment towards this countries. Because we have some citizens or non citizens in United States that are from these countries, and Messenger is the easiest way of communication with their families or friends in their countries. Also, we shouldn't’t think of Windows Live Messenger for the citizens, the tool to only communicate or entertain themselves . But if we think of it, citizens of USA that are born in those countries and can speak in those languages can outsource some of their work especially on the software side to those countries. Therefore, Windows Live Messenger would be the best way to communicate by creating the group. General speaking, why when two governments have problems with each other, the people of those countries should not improved in technology. Not only United States blocked some services toward these countries, but the government of the embargoed countries use “filters on the Internet to block pages that contain pornography or are considered a threat to national security.” So both sides, restricts people to have a correct use of technology. Even though, Cuban government uses Windows operating system and other Microsoft programs on many of its computer , but it is working toward replacing them with open-source programs. Also, benefits of open source software is one of the subjects that has been taught in high schools.
Toward the issues of blocking usage of messenger for embargoed countries, one solution is mentioned in other article. User can change the home location which is located under registration information to the new country or region that is not under the name of those five countries. Because Microsoft make decisions based on the profile information opposed to IP addresses. If this is the case blocking Messenger from Microsoft wouldn’t work well.

Original document:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i56hsOdkf0riZRU-x7LbBqG2XN9AD98G9D801

Other sources:
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/05/microsoft-blocks-messenger-in-us-embargoed-countries.ars