New internet restrictions in Vietnam

Regarding the requirement of opening data centers in Vietnam: the same is true of many other countries including Russia and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), where service providers will be required to host their data locally, and provide a way to remove any and all data associated with a user upon request.

The mouse that roars.
Virtually no ecommerce, little credit card usage, provincial banks not trusted, so how much clout to force the building of $100M data centers?

Economic growth takes freedom, not central planning by the party.
Sad.

The government is very worried about its citizens taking them to task By having  a centre here in VN they are able to control things, just the way they like it.

I am working from a flawed memory, but when presented by China with the same situation, didn't Google say no?  As a result, local Chinese companies occupied that space.  If Facebook said no to the government demands, and effectively ended itself in Vietnam, there wouldn't be a political uprising but there certainly would be a high level of resentment.  However, Facebook will probably comply as it has recently shown itself to be a fully amoral company only concerned with making a buck.

THIGV wrote:

I am working from a flawed memory, but when presented by China with the same situation, didn't Google say no?  As a result, local Chinese companies occupied that space. .

Chinese alternatives for Google SE (Baidu), YouTube (YouKu) and other web platforms, from social media to e-commerce, were already well established and very popular in China by the time Google pulled out of China in 2010.
Six years later in 2016 Google said it was willing to come back.
Others are just waiting to follow suit.

It's not a big surprise.
Many countries are asking the same.

For Vietnam it make sense for:
1) Showing some muscle (little but still)
2) Relying less on international bandwidth (We know how they struggle)
3) Better protect (control?) their data (In Europe we are always complaining about it)
4) Getting a bigger part of the cake (Easier to collect taxes, large investment to come, etc...)

Viettel has invested quite a lot in datacenter recently (They got 5 datacenters Tier 3, with 4000+ racks), some others players like FPT as well, etc..
Yet it will not be enough but could trigger additional demand.

However, it is a big break to innovation from others countries if they need to respect such policy for a relatively small market

As soon as they block access I'm on the next plane out of here to a country that provides the goods. Unfortunate, but my sole livelihood is made through everything they would block. Hopefully it's just a bluff.

TigerPlease wrote:

As soon as they block access I'm on the next plane out of here to a country that provides the goods. Unfortunate, but my sole livelihood is made through everything they would block. Hopefully it's just a bluff.

What are they blocking that would be a problem for you. I thought it was more about trying to stop people taking the government to task. Commies hate being ridiculed in public.

I havn't really heard or read much about the issue, but from what I did hear/read Vietnam would lose access to Facebook, YouTube and other Social Medias, the way it is in China.

I didn't pay much attention because doing something like that seems ridiculous and figured it was just a bluff to get something they want. It's not a problem till it's a problem and if it happens, we'll just pack our bags and leave.

You should read the links. The government wants the companies to open centres here, and is trying to get people who are using these services for business to pay some tax, which they currently don't do.They say they also want to try and control trade fraud. But as like China, communists like to be in control of everything. This may be a problem with the TPP that they are a signatory to.

They also want more control over what is posted online in relation to government activities and policy.

Will give them a read tomorrow mate, time to unwind. Swim then dinner time

The life of the idle rich....lol.

TigerPlease wrote:

Swim then dinner time

colinoscapee wrote:

The life of the idle rich....lol.

One of the reasons spouse and I moved here was to become multi-millionaires, even when we're without a pool.   

Yes, and it's also why I prefer to live in VN, where for the first time in my life I didn"t have to worry about not having enough money. Bad luck, my VN wife wants to live in Australia.

ralphnhatrang wrote:

Yes, and it's also why I prefer to live in VN, where for the first time in my life I didn"t have to worry about not having enough money. Bad luck, my VN wife wants to live in Australia.

Haha, I took mine back for a three month holiday early this year. When she realized how much it cost me she said and still does say she doesn't want to go back. We had a good time and got to see alot but the nanny state population control is too much for my liking right now.

I have hedged my bets and bought a small condo in Thailand as well,  I tele-commute while travelling, no where in the last month, in Vietnam could I connect to my https://  it appears they have blocked all secure sites.  I started using a VPN in Nha Trang, and it worked marginally for awhile but I had to keep changing IP's  -   not good for longer than 10 mins  -  seems Vietnam wants no part of https://      -      as soon as I got back to Thailand, all was normal with 4G, 5G (in Bangkok)  and I can connect just fine here at home in Pattaya.................Vietnam has a long way to go, they have to lose a bit of paranoia  before I would sink any serious investment here.

What couldn't you connect to? Everything's been running fine for me from the top all the way down to HCMC

Same here for HTTPS. Which websites you are referring too?
Also Bangkok is not having 5G. They have 4.5G (Marketing term) but it is simply the 4G LTE or 4G+ depending of the telco.