It’s not exactly “ideal” when a useful app gets banned or forcibly removed from the app store due to political posturing. Sadly, this is what is happening now with “Waze” in Iran. Due to Waze’s Israeli background and origins, Iran’s government wants to block it and prevent people in Iran from using it.

Waze one of the most popular apps used for navigating highways, cities, and roads. The app uses user data to compile traffic reports, accidents, and directions to and from locations as well as the estimated times for each trip. The app started out as a social networking mapping app that was gamified by attaining points, and now it’s one of the best mapping systems in the world today due to live user interaction and feedback.

It’s not exactly clear why Iran has decided to ban Waze despite having an Israeli origin. It was founded in Israel by Ehud Shabtai, Amir Shinar and Uri Levine. In 2013, it was acquired by Google.

Access to Waze was already blocked once earlier this year in March, but the ban was later removed. However, now Abdolsamad Khorramabadi, secretary of the ‎Committee for Determining Criminal Web Content, wants to move forward with a more permanent blockade to end the app’s functionality in Iran. Now, a team in Iran is commissioned to take the necessary measures to block the app.

The method used to block the app is not clear yet, and Iranian media sources seem to think that the blockade might take awhile, due to the considerable infrastructure that Waze has established.

Of course, with a VPN, you can access anything in the world. In a country like Iran, Stealth VPN by TorGuard with advanced obfuscation techniques ensure that your VPN always stays access to unblock content.