~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

[Year 1997]
[Year 1998]
[Year 1999]
[Year 2000]
[Year 2001]
[Year 2002]

Intel CEO in Vietnam says govt web controls futile

HANOI - Government attempts to control cyberspace are doomed to failure, the chief executive officer of Intel Corp said on Wednesday during a whirlwind tour through communist-ruled Vietnam. Craig Barrett, the head of the world's biggest semiconductor maker, who showcased the wonders of the Internet in a glitzy one-hour presentation to government leaders and business officials, called the Internet "a democratizing technology."

"Attempts to control the Internet have generally failed," he added. Barrett was responding to a question at a news conference about how he handled the promotion of the Internet in countries with restrictions on information.

The government in Hanoi has been tightening controls on cyberspace. Rights groups accused the government earlier this year of detaining three dissidents for publishing on the Internet pro-democracy texts and criticism of Vietnam's border agreements with China, a charge the government has denied. This month, authorities said they may fortify the firewalls to cyberspace to block out subversive material and pornography. A Web Site popular with young people in the southeast Asian country was recently shut down after the government said it carried objectionable content and had not registered with the government. About one million of Vietnam's 80 million population surf the Internet.

Intel, which has sales and marketing operations in capital city Hanoi and southern economic hub Ho Chi Minh City, but no manufacturing plants, did not announce any new investments in Vietnam during its CEO's trip. Barrett, who visits about 30 countries each year, just completed a trip to Malaysia's northern Penang state, where Intel has a plant. He told reporters there he was expecting modest growth in earnings in the third quarter from the second quarter and could not predict when business spending would pick up.

The comments drove Intel's share price down 4.5 percent on Tuesday. He moves on to India next, then Australia. Earlier on Wednesday, he spoke to about 1,000 students at the Hanoi University of Technology.

Reuters - August 28, 2002.