The Iranian Minister for Information and Communications Technology, Reza Taghipour, reportedly announced the Islamic Republic plans on establishing a national intranet in order to create a nationally firewalled and "clean Internet" within five months.
"All Internet Service Providers (ISP) should only present National Internet by August," Taghipour said in a press statement on the ICT website, according to media reports.
This would mean sites such as Google and Yahoo! will be replaced with government run substitutes dubbed Iran Mail and Iran Search Engine.
However, according to phys.org, the Iranian Information Ministry said the statement from Taghipour was "completely baseless" and fabricated by "the propaganda wing of the West."
A source, speaking with the Guardian in January 2012, confirmed Iran is creating the national intranet but only "to secure its own military, banking and sensitive data from the outside world."
Outside estimates state Iran currently censors around five million sites. Internet access is slow and expensive throughout the internationally sanctioned country.
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