A storm of protest hit Google last week over Buzz, its new social networking service, because of user concerns about the inadvertent exposure of their data. Internet users in Iran, however, were spared such trouble. It's not because Google took extra care in protecting their identities—they didn't—but because the Iranian authorities decided to ban Gmail, Google's popular email service, and replace it with a national email system that would be run by the government.

Such paradoxes abound in the Islamic Republic's complex relationship...