Freelancer.com Blacklisted by Iranian Authorities Amid Growing Popularity Among Professionals

SYDNEY, Dec. 13, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The Islamic Republic of Iran has blacklisted Freelancer.com, the world's largest outsourcing and crowdsourcing marketplace.

Chief Executive Matt Barrie sympathized with Iranian Freelancer.com members. "The reasons for the ban are unspecified but thousands of Iranian freelancers are now being denied opportunities to work and earn online, at a time when the Internet has irrevocably disrupted global labor markets," he said.

The company was notified of the ban by an Iranian freelancer, whose attempts to have the ban lifted proved unsuccessful.

"Freelancer.com members in Iran have gone to great lengths to access the site. They used to use VPNs, virtual private networks, but the government slowed connection speeds so as to make it near impossible, and now this," Barrie added.

Freelancer.com, which enables 3 million professional freelancers, in over 234 countries and territories, to earn money working online, now joins Twitter, Facebook, the BBC, Reuters and other global heavyweights on the list of sites blocked by Iranian government filters. Additionally, a US "virtual embassy" was also blocked, a day after going online.

"We hope the authorities will reconsider their stance on Freelancer.com because, historically, Iran has given the world major advancements in mathematics, astronomy and other fields. They're an accomplished people and have a lot more to offer," Barrie concluded.

About Freelancer
Webby award winning Freelancer.com is the largest outsourcing and crowdsourcing marketplace in the world. Through Freelancer.com, businesses connect with 3 million independent professionals from all over the world. Employers can hire freelancers in areas such as software, writing, data entry and design, right through to engineering and the sciences, sales & marketing and accounting & legal services. The average job is under US$200, making Freelancer.com extremely cost effective for small businesses, which often need a wide variety of jobs to be done, but cannot justify the expense of hiring full time.

http://www.freelancer.com

SOURCE Freelancer.com