By Clarence | AfterPost | September 27, 2026*
VERIFICATION NOTE
Iranian outlet WANA and dozens of user reports on Sept 27 confirm +98 numbers are failing Google's phone verification for new accounts. Google has *not* announced new sanctions. The cause – policy change, OFAC compliance, or SMS routing failure – remains unconfirmed.
1. What Exactly Happened?
On Saturday morning, Iranian tech channels lit up. Users trying to create a new Gmail or Google account entered their +98 mobile number for verification, as Google requires to prove you're not a bot. Then nothing. Either an instant error – "This number cannot be used for verification" – or endless waiting for an SMS code that never arrives.
With no alternative verification path offered, registration dies at that step.
This is catastrophic in practice because a Google account is not just email. In Iran's Android-dominated market (over 90% of smartphones), it is your digital ID: Google Play for apps, Drive for documents, Photos for memories, Contacts backup, YouTube login, Google Scholar for students, and Android device setup itself.
WANA's report notes this isn't entirely new – Google support forums show Iranian complaints about undelivered codes and +98 rejections for months – but the scale this week suggests a systemic block.
2. Is This a New US Sanction?
No official US Treasury or Google announcement exists. But the background matters.
Under US OFAC sanctions, Google already blocks Iranians from Google Pay, Google Cloud, AdSense, Google AI Studio, Gemini Advanced, and other monetized services. Free consumer services like Gmail and Search were historically allowed under General License D-1 and D-2, meant to support internet freedom.
So why now? Three theories:
*A) Over-compliance:* Amid the Middle East war since February 2026 and Hormuz blockade, US tech firms are terrified of OFAC fines. Many over-block entire country codes rather than risk violation.
*B) Technical breakdown:* Iran's National Information Network, international SMS gateway sanctions, and war-time telecom disruptions may be preventing verification SMS delivery. Iranian carriers are under sanctions, making SMS interconnectivity fragile.
*C) Quiet policy tightening:* Google may have updated its risk-based fraud detection to flag +98 numbers as high-risk, effectively shadow-banning them without announcement.
Most likely: a mix of A and B.
3. "How Does This Stop Nukes?" – The Collective Punishment Debate
Your question cuts to the heart of sanctions criticism. Blocking a Tehran university student from creating Gmail does nothing to slow uranium enrichment at Fordow.
Human rights groups have argued for years that broad tech sanctions punish civilians while regimes build workarounds via smuggled SIMs, foreign accounts, and state intranets. The Iranian government itself pushes its National Information Network as an alternative, which actually _increases_ state surveillance – the opposite of internet freedom goals.
Supporters of tough tech controls argue any data flow, even via Play Services, could have dual-use value. Critics call it digital collective punishment.
4. Why Iranians Can't Just Move to Yandex or Baidu – The Deep Dive
This is the question Westerners ask most. If Google blocks you, use Russian Yandex or Chinese Baidu, right? Here is why it's not viable:
*1. Android Lock-In:* Android _is_ Google. Without Google Mobile Services (GMS) and Play Store verification, most Iranian banking apps (like Snapp, Divar), ride-hailing, and even government apps malfunction. MicroG workarounds exist but are technical and unstable. Huawei's HMS tried to replace GMS and largely failed globally – that tells you how hard it is.
*2. Ecosystem Desert:* Yandex Mail, Disk, and Maps are built for Russia. Persian NLP is poor, spam filters misclassify Persian, and there are almost zero Iranian third-party integrations. Baidu is worse: entirely Chinese-centric, no Persian UI, heavily censored, and requires a Chinese +86 number for full features – trading one block for another.
*3. Trust Deficit:* Many Iranians distrust Yandex and Baidu _more_ than Google on privacy. Perception is that Russian and Chinese firms will readily share data with Tehran's security apparatus under SCO cooperation agreements, whereas Google at least fights some requests publicly.
*4. Data Hostage:* 15 years of emails, Drive theses, business contracts, and 100GB of Photos libraries are in Google. No one-click migration to Yandex Disk exists. For businesses, SEO, Gmail business identity, and Google Scholar citations are irreplaceable.
*5. Global Interoperability:* An Iranian freelancer _must_ use Gmail to communicate with foreign clients. Sending a http://Yandex.ru email often lands in spam. Universities require Gmail for Coursera, arXiv, and journal submissions. Baidu Scholar is not recognized.
*6. Iran's Own Filtering:* Tehran throttles all foreign traffic to push users to domestic clones like Soroush and Bale. Yandex and Baidu get throttled just like Google, so speed gains are zero.
*7. Sanctions Whack-a-Mole:* Yandex is itself under Western sanctions. Baidu complies with Chinese cybersecurity law requiring real-name ID. Iranians would face new KYC walls there too.
In short: switching means losing apps, contacts, credibility, and still facing slow speeds and surveillance – with no guarantee the alternative won't block +98 next.
5. What Can Iranians Do?
Tech-savvy Iranians use foreign virtual numbers (often via friends abroad), old pre-existing accounts, or domestic email like http://mail.ir – but each carries security risks. VPNs remain essential, though Iran criminalizes unauthorized VPNs.
Conclusion
Whether intentional or technical, the +98 verification failure reveals the fragility of Iran's connection to the global internet. Caught between US over-compliance from above and Iran's national intranet project from below, ordinary Iranians are losing digital citizenship.
Until Google clarifies, the message Iranians hear is simple: you are blocked for being Iranian. And there is nowhere easy else to go.
_AfterPostInt has contacted Google for comment. This story will be updated._