Vietnam Requires Gov't Vetting of Business Websites

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Vietnam Requires Gov't Vetting of Business Websites

Posted by timothy on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:59AM from the having-it-bad dept.

bhsurfer writes "Vietnam is now requiring government permission for businesses to set up websites. This article on yahoo give a brief rundown. The Ministry of Culture and Information came up with the rules, but hasn't given any info about the penalties for breaking them." The rules are apparently designed to combat the "increasing numbers of Vietnamese with access to news from outside sources." Update: 10/14 19:40 GMT by T :Sorry, that's 'Vietnam'.'

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Vietname... by david.given · 2002-10-14 07:04 · Score: 4, Funny

...would make a really good name for an east Asian domain registrar.
1. Re:Vietname... by Anonymous Coward · 2002-10-14 07:18 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  ... and vietname.com is already taken. Just shows you there are no good domains left anymore...
2. Re:Vietname... by neitzsche · 2002-10-14 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  ... and vietname.com [vietname.com] is already taken. Just shows you there are no good domains left anymore...
  
  Someone please mod the parent up.
  
  Oh, and fix the title's typo already.
  
  --
  "God is dead." - Frederik Nietzsche
Excuse me .... by fro_less · 2002-10-14 07:06 · Score: 0, Funny

What's your nam?
1. Re:Excuse me .... by pkphilip · 2002-10-21 01:10 · Score: 1
  
  I guess you don't know how close you got to something...!
  
  The word which sounds exactly like "nam" (as in vietnam) means name in Hindi and Sanskrit. So "whats your nam?" could mean "whats your name?"
Yes, because by Unknown+Poltroon · 2002-10-14 07:07 · Score: 1

Stopping a VIETNAMESE business will certanly keep OUTSIDE information from getting in. WHat the hell kind of bogus comment is that????

--
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
prostityootka! by Anonymous Coward · 2002-10-14 07:09 · Score: 0

govorit meenya vavoot, syeka!
Vietnam by Wrexen · 2002-10-14 07:15 · Score: 1

The correct spelling of the country's name only has one 'e'. Mod me down as redudant when everyone else posts this, please!
1. Re:Vietnam by buswolley · 2002-10-20 21:31 · Score: 1
  
  Let me make it redundant for everyone. **"The correct spelling of the country's name only has one 'e'. Mod me down as redudant when everyone else posts this, please!"**
  
  --
  A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Sure it will by KnightStalker · 2002-10-14 07:15 · Score: 2

if the business in question is an internet cafe or an ISP. Maybe you should read the article.

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* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
Wow... my education is lacking by Zelet · 2002-10-14 07:17 · Score: 1

Up until today, I thought there was a communist North Vietnam and a democratic South Vietnam much like the Koreas. Wow, I guess I'm wrong. Good job of teaching us world history Fremont High School and UNO department of history.

Bastards :)

--
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
1. Re:Wow... my education is lacking by Anonymous Coward · 2002-10-14 07:22 · Score: 0
  
  You are thinking Korea.
  
  Once the US presence left Vietnam, the North united the country, under the communist banner of course.
  
  But, as I have seen on TV, it is a wonderful place to on vacation!
2. Re:Wow... my education is lacking by neocon · 2002-10-14 07:34 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  Yep. They also killed more Vietnamese in the first three years of `peace' than had died in the entire previous twenty-five years of war...
3. Re:Wow... my education is lacking by neocon · 2002-10-14 11:08 · Score: 1, Redundant
  
  Heh -- anyone wanna guess who's orthodoxy was offended enough by this fact to make them mark this post (but not either of the parents) `Off Topic'. :-)
Vetting? by cjpez · 2002-10-14 07:44 · Score: 1

Huh?
pez@charm bin $ wlookup vetting 1 definition found *** Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) *** Curvet \Cur"vet\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Curveted} or {-vetted}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Curveting} or {-vetting}.] [Cf. It. corvettare. See {Curvet}, n.] 1. To make a curvet; to leap; to bound. ``Oft and high he did curvet.'' --Drayton. 2. To leap and frisk; to frolic. --Shak.

--
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
1. Re:Vetting? by msuzio · 2002-10-14 07:50 · Score: 2
  
  Try stepping away from the machine and looking in a real dictionary. It's a word.
  
  Lazy ass programmers :-)
  
  --
  It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
2. Re:Vetting? by cjpez · 2002-10-14 08:01 · Score: 2, Informative
  diiii...ct....ion.....ary?>
  Well, though I don't have a real dictionary on hand at the moment, going over to dictionary.com does give me a little better information, a la:
  v. vetted, vetting, vets
  v. tr.
  
  To subject to veterinary evaluation, examination, medication, or surgery.
  
  To subject to thorough examination or evaluation: vet a manuscript.
  
  I assume it's being used in case #2 here. :) I suppose that clears that up, then.
  --
  Al Qaeda has ninjas!
This is stupid. Communism. by genrader · 2002-10-14 08:03 · Score: 0

See? Another reason Communism doesn't work: No freedom. Eventually China will collapse. Russia collapsed and China got their policies from Russia, therefore, China will eventually collapse. How and when I don't know but they will. Sigh...poor people.

--
the Political Inquirer
Communist Country? by jsimon12 · 2002-10-14 08:04 · Score: 2

And the fact that yet another Communist country is trying to keep its citizens in the dark about the outside world is a surprise for what reason?
1. Re:Communist Country? by buswolley · 2002-10-20 21:33 · Score: 1
  
  what country doesn't keep is citizens in the dark?
  Oh please please please don't say the U.S.
  Live in the United States of Zen. ..You could always live in Zen, then
  
  --
  A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
The penalty for -anything- in Vietnam by Mordant · 2002-10-14 08:16 · Score: 1

is pretty much the same - i.e., a bullet in the back of the head.
Not just Commiez... SPAIN too! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2002-10-14 08:16 · Score: 5, Informative

The Reg just had an article this morning, about a similar law - called LSSI- in Spain.
ISPs and sites are being held accountable for "illicit" content.
Stop your red-baiting on the thread, you trolls! It's happening in "western, liberal-democracies", too!
U.S. is mere motions away from this. If recent precedent carries over to Net space, "Justice" Department will exercise this authority without consultation from the legislature.

--
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
1. Re:Not just Commiez... SPAIN too! by neocon · 2002-10-14 08:51 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  U.S. is mere motions away from this. If recent precedent carries over to Net space, "Justice" Department will exercise this authority without consultation from the legislature.
  
  Care to back this claim up? Care to show us anything resembling this being proposed in the US?
  
  And, for the record, I wouldn't call a nation doing something like this a `liberal democracy', no matter what continent it's on. Would you?
2. Re:Not just Commiez... SPAIN too! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2002-10-14 09:22 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Well, Ashcroft's statements are easy enough to find. This is related to the Child-Pr0n bugbear.
  It's all about the children
  More astonishing precedent is set by the confiscation of web servers at raisethefist.com .
  If I am to accept what I beleive to be your criteria, then it's pretty clear in the light of recent developments, that the U.S. is not a liberal democracy, and is quickly moving away from any reasonable description of a Republic.
  
  --
  "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
  Never been known to fail..."
3. Re:Not just Commiez... SPAIN too! by neocon · 2002-10-14 09:40 · Score: 2
  
  Interesting -- so in your view prosecution of server admins after the fact for publishing content (child pornography) which is already illegal is the same as prior restraint of web publishing or punishment of unpopular views?
  
  Really?
  
  That's even stranger than your original claims...
4. Re:Not just Commiez... SPAIN too! by J'raxis · 2002-10-14 14:28 · Score: 1
  
  Try Pennsylvania. The state government is forcing WorldCom to block content from outside the U.S. because it finds it objectionable.
  
  --
  Liberty in your lifetime
5. Re:Not just Commiez... SPAIN too! by neocon · 2002-10-14 14:37 · Score: 2
  
  Well, for starters, I think that should read ``a publicity-crazed state attorney general is trying to raise the spectre of carrier liability in order to draw attention to his re-election campaign'', but yes, people do try stunts like this from time to time. That the system has done a very good job of smacking such attempts down (and that the only example you come up with is from local state politics, not federal at all) is one more example of how well our system has done at the job of preserving individual rights in the over two-hundred years that it has existed.
Orwell's vision by Tar-Palantir · 2002-10-15 02:57 · Score: 0

"Ministry of Culture and Information"... yeah right. Taken from the pages of 1984.
1. Re:Orwell's vision by buswolley · 2002-10-20 21:35 · Score: 1
  
  1984. good book dat. Wasn't that the one that taught us to love the government because they love us too, and will care for us like we were but tini-babes? p.Hold on let me put on the tin foil.
  
  --
  A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Penalty by Anonymous Coward · 2002-10-16 08:23 · Score: 0

"The Ministry of Culture and Information came up with the rules, but hasn't given any info about the penalties for breaking them."
During the first reported enforcement of the new law, a representative of the Ministry of Culture and Information was quoted as having declared, "I need about three-fitty." Chef Nguyen, official spokesperson for the alleged violator, was openly skeptical of this penalty, claiming in a statement that continues to baffle the editorial staff, "the business has long worked to maintain profitability, and is thus hesitant to once again be fooled so easily by the likes of that damned Loch Ness Monster." No other officials at the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture and Information could be reached for comment at press time, though many anonymous government insiders speculate that the special representative might deign to accept two-fitty.
The internet is alive a well in Hanoi by Anonymous Coward · 2002-10-21 12:48 · Score: 0

I was in Vietnam in April. Internet cafes do quite a business. Usually a cafe is ten winders boxes sharing a 56K modem, but it's either that or no access. The locals are into instant messaging. Try using something like hotmail, and you'll wait forever for the graphics to download.

We used a lot of Vietnamese web sites to book our tours.

It may be Socialist in name, but Vietman is very open for business.