Provisions on the conditions for establishing general information websites and providing social network services in Vietnam from December 25, 2024

Provisions on the conditions for establishing general information websites and providing social network services in Vietnam from December 25, 2024​ (Image from the internet)

The Government of Vietnam issued Decree 147/2024/ND-CP on November 9, 2024, regarding the management, provision, and use of internet services and online information.

Provisions on the conditions for establishing general information websites and providing social network services in Vietnam from December 25, 2024

Article 25 of Decree 147/2024/ND-CP stipulates the conditions for establishing general information websites and providing social network services in Vietnam from December 25, 2024 as follows:

(1) Domestic agencies, organizations, and enterprises are only permitted to establish general information websites when they hold a Permit for Establishing general information websites.

(2) Domestic agencies, organizations, and enterprises are only permitted to provide social network services when they meet the conditions outlined in section (4).

(3) Conditions for being granted a Permit for Establishing general information websites:

- Being an agency, organization, or enterprise established according to Vietnamese law, with registered functions, tasks, or business sectors as listed on the National Enterprise Registration Portal, in line with the provided services and information content;

- Registered for domain name usage to establish general information websites and meets the regulations in Article 26 of Decree 147/2024/ND-CP;

- Complies with organizational, personnel, and technical conditions as per the provisions of Decree 147/2024/ND-CP;

- Has content and information management measures as required in Article 28 of this Decree.

(4) Conditions for providing domestic social network services:

- Being an agency, organization, or enterprise established under Vietnamese law, with registered functions, tasks, or business sectors listed on the National Enterprise Registration Portal, suitable for the provided social network services;

- Registered for domain name usage to provide social network services and meets the regulation in Article 26 of this Decree;

- Complies with organizational, personnel, and technical conditions as per Article 27 of Decree 147/2024/ND-CP;

- Has content and information management measures as required in Article 28 of Decree 147/2024/ND-CP.

(5) Conditions for being granted a Permit for Providing Social Network Services:

- The social network has a large number of regular visitors. In cases where the social network has fewer regular visitors but seeks to provide livestream features or revenue-generating activities, a permit may still be considered;

- Fully meets the conditions specified in section (4).

Conditions regarding domain names and site names for domestic general information websites and social networks in Vietnam

Where agencies, organizations, and enterprises establish general information websites and provide social network services via domain names, they must meet the following conditions:

- For agencies, organizations, and enterprises that are not press agencies, the domain name and site name must not resemble or be identical to the name of a press agency or include words (in Vietnamese or equivalent foreign languages) that could mistakenly suggest a press agency or journalistic activities such as: Newspaper, radio, magazine, news, information, broadcast, television, communication, press agency, press corporation.

- General information websites and social networks must use the ".vn" domain name as the primary domain and store user data on servers with IP addresses in Vietnam.

- The ".vn" domain name must be registered for use by the agency, organization, or enterprise applying for the permit, with a validity of at least 6 months at the time of application, complying with Internet resource management and usage regulations. For international domains, there must be verified legitimate domain usage for the agency, organization, or enterprise applying for the permit.

- General information websites licensed by the local Department of Information and Communications must not use domain names with sequences of characters matching those of other localities.

(Article 26 Decree 147/2024/ND-CP)

More details can be found in Decree 147/2024/ND-CP, effective from December 25, 2024.

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