The Hanoi People’s Committee issued an official dispatch on a crackdown to prevent advertising content for betting, online gambling, and prostitution on state-run websites and portals.
The move follows a request from the Ministry of Public Security, which discovered hundreds of state-run websites whose domain names end in gov.vn being disturbed by annoying advertisements for the aforementioned illegal services.
The gov.vn domain signifies a website belong to organizations and agencies under the government of Vietnam.
The Ministry of Public Security warned of a risk of network insecurity, threats to information safety, and an increase in crime on betting and gambling regarding the rampant state of the advertisements.
The ministry thus requested a crackdown on the issue.
In response to the request, the Hanoi People’s Committee ordered grassroots-level authorities and related units to review their websites and portals and deal with their existing security holes, if any, to prevent the running of the disturbing advertising content.
“It is necessary to clearly stipulate the inspection and censorship of user-generated content before allowing it to be displayed on the websites, along with the feature of storing users’ IP addresses when they post content on the websites for later verification,” the municipal People’s Committee said in its dispatch.