Turkey and its own internet

The Turkish government is planning to build a massive network of email and search engine systems for Turkic countries & muslim countries. This is the biggest technology news in Turkey right now.

According to Information and Communication Technologies Authority’s Board Chairman Tayfun Acarer, this project will eat Google alive & no Turkish citizen will need the use of Google, Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail or YouTube. Yes even YouTube which has been banned for almost 2 years in Turkey.

Thanks to the project, every citizen will get a 10 Gb email service. I can’t say for free because if this project becomes a reality, I’m sure the government would create a tax for it. But I’m not sure how a “search engine” project will kill Google, YouTube and Gmail.

And thanks again to the project, all of Turkish citizens’ information will be safe as the chairman says “All internet communication data goes to foreign countries and then it returns. This activity has a security aspect”. Because as all we know, other countries always steal the info in Turkish emails.

YouTube has been banned for almost 2 years (looks like it won’t be opening soon). Google, recently was fined $47m for tax dodging. If you search porn on Google Turkey, the first 20 or more results are banned because of they are “against the morals” of Turkish viewers.

The sad thing about the whole government project is that some people still don’t realize that the government is trying to kill off their communication with the rest of the world. Some think that all this censorship is necessary and that the government should protect them. Some think that they should help the government with building this huge project so they can be proud of the masterpiece that all the world will see.

Let me tell you what’s going to happen if no one says anything, does nothing. Some people will be rich, really rich with the money the Turkish government will pay for the development of the project. The project will be launched in a month or 3 years (either way it’ll suck) and they’ll say “we don’t need any other sites, so let’s just ban them”. And the Chinese, ah I’m sorry the Turkish people will live with their un-monitored, safe search-email-video-site.