Vietnam’s Ministry of Communication–the MIC–has told Netflix it will need to stop advertising its video games on its platform and will need to remove them from the Apple App store and Google Play store by April 15, according to a statement on its website. It is says that Netflix has not been licensed to provide video games in the country and therefore the firm is breaching Vietnam’s Decree 72/2013/ND though it does not specify which part of the Decree.
Of note, the MIC has been pushing cross-border service providers to establish offices in Vietnam but few firms have yet compiled. Local offices would provide the MIC greater control over the content that is disseminated with an office to raid in the event a firm breaches its guidelines. TikTok, one of the few that has opened a local office, found itself subject to an audit by the MIC which found a number of breaches of a range of rules and regulations.