Iranian Company Responsible For Internet Disruption Loses Domain

Iranian media reported that the international domains of "Abr Arvan" company has been unavailable since Sunday morning.

This happened six days after the European Union imposed sanctions against the company. Arvan Cloud or Abr Arvan is an Iranian IT company supporting the Iranian government’s efforts to control access to the Internet in Iran.

The EU sanctioned the company on November 14 for its role in denying Internet access to pave the ground for the regime to crack down on current protests. Reports from Iran this week indicated an improvement in connectivity after the EU sanctions, because Abr Arvan lost some server facilities it had in Europe.

Checking the status of this company's ‘.com’ domain on the "ICANN" website, which is the main body overseeing Internet domains, shows that this domain is in HOLD mode.

According to ICANN, this usually occurs in case of legal problems, non-payment, or when the domain is being removed.

Without mentioning the sanctions, Abr Arvan has claimed this happened simply due to “disruption of the international registrar.”

In addition to the ‘.com’ domain, the company's ‘.net’ domain, which was used for some technical infrastructure, has also been taken down.

Abr Arvan domains were registered by GoDaddy company. GoDaddy is a well-known company in the field of Internet hosting services, based in New Jersey.

The unavailability of Abr Arvan’s main domains, in addition to technical problems, has caused the company's website and user dashboard to be accessible only through its Iranian domain.