Google Reader fans protest service changes

We thought Google’s update of Reader would cause some rumblings, and it looks like we were right. Fans didn’t take well to the announced removal of Reader’s social features — along with the typical petition, a handful of geeky protesters appeared yesterday at the search giant’s Washington DC headquarters with signs like “Google: Don’t mark all as read.” While this all may seem cute, the service change may have greater implications: a blog post by an Iranian claims that Reader is an important tool since many other sites are blocked by the government. Apparently the social features of Reader made it incredibly useful during the Iranian protests last year. The blogger claims that the Iranian government hasn’t blocked Reader since it shares a domain with Google search and is accessible over a secured (i.e. https) connection. Whether any of this will make Google change its mind remains to be seen.