Vietnam’s Decree Silent on Local Offices for Foreign Internet Companies
RFA - 07-19-2013
A new decree spelling out
legal requirements for foreign Internet companies operating in Vietnam does not
contain a clause from an earlier draft version compelling them to open offices
inside the one-party Communist state.
A copy of Decree No. 72, which was signed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on
July 15 and will go into effect on Sept. 1, omits the clause found in a draft
version of the document as recently as April, according to a copy of the law
seen by RFA's Vietnamese Service.
Rights groups have complained that by forcing foreign companies to maintain
offices or data centers in Vietnam, which media watchdog Reporters Without
Borders has listed as an “Enemy of the Internet,” authorities would be able to
make them obey domestic rules.
Despite the waiver, the new decree will still require companies like Facebook
and Google to adhere to a strict set of guidelines governing what kind of
content they can host on their websites and forcing them to turn over personal
information about users who violate Vietnamese law.
The guidelines are applied to “organization/individuals inside and outside
Vietnam, directly/indirectly involved in managing/providing Internet services
and information, and online games, ensuring information safety,” according to
the decree.
Prohibited activities include using the Internet and online information to “go
against the state of socialist republic of Vietnam, jeopardizing national
security or social order, damaging national unity, issuing war propaganda,
carrying out acts of terrorism, creating hatred between ethnic groups … [or]
revealing state secrets including those related to the military, security and
foreign affairs.”
The document says that Vietnam’s policy of development and management of
Internet and online information is meant to “prevent activities … affecting
national security/social order, degrading morals, tradition, and violating the
law.”
Only information “in accordance to the law of Vietnam can be carried on
Internet, including information available to users in the country from abroad.”
The decree says that foreign organizations, companies and individuals providing
information that is accessible via the Internet from abroad to users in Vietnam
or for people who can access it from inside the country “must adhere to the
relevant regulations of Vietnam.”
The Ministry of Information and Communications will provide specific guidance on
providing online content from outside the country.
Earlier drafts
An earlier draft of the decree regulating Internet use in Vietnam was slammed by
the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi in June last year, with Washington calling the
proposal “unworkable” and a threat to freedom of expression in the country.
That draft required Internet users to register with their real names and forced
foreign Internet companies to relocate their data centers and establish local
offices in Vietnam.
The U.S. said at the time that the proposed measures would hamper commercial
development of the Internet sector and threaten netizens’ rights to express
their ideas freely.
The draft decree also drew the attention of U.S. Congressman Frank Wolf, who
wrote a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg calling on him to promote the
principles of democracy and human rights through his company’s corporate actions
if the new set of online restrictions were enacted in Vietnam.
Zuckerberg had vacationed in Vietnam in December 2011 with his now-wife
Priscilla Chan.
Facebook is intermittently blocked in Vietnam, though netizens can access the
site with relative ease.
An earlier decree in August 2008 did not include information about managing
foreign companies providing online content to Vietnam from abroad.
The right to freedom of expression is guaranteed under Vietnam’s constitution
and the Vietnamese government has signed international obligations to ensure
that right.
But Vietnam has jailed at least 38 netizens and activists amid a crackdown on
online dissent that has intensified over the past three years, convicting many
of them under vaguely worded national security provisions, according to rights
groups.
Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese
Service. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.