Blocking advertising content for betting, online gambling, and prostitution on websites

The document clearly stated that, according to the recent announcement of the Ministry of Public Security, hundreds of websites under the management of State agencies (with the domain name .gov.vn) have been inserted with thousands of links containing advertising content, along with links to websites for online betting, gambling, and prostitution; at the same time, using advertising tools of search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo...) to promote and increase the reputation of illegal online betting and gambling websites.

The Ministry of Public Security has discovered that hundreds of electronic information pages under State management have been inserted with links to websites for online betting, gambling, and prostitution. Photo: Internet

This situation may stem from the following reasons: (1) Domain names belonging to State agencies (with the domain name .gov.vn) are the primary targets of hackers; (2) The agencies managing e-commerce sites do not control the content that users post (such as comments, questions and answers, and feedback), allowing anyone to post content and display it on the e-commerce site; (3) E-commerce sites have security holes, are attacked, exploited, and controlled by hackers, who then post content advertising online betting, gambling, and prostitution; (4) Administrators of some e-commerce sites intentionally post advertising content for personal purposes.

The situation of taking advantage of the websites of State agencies to post illegal content (advertising football betting, prostitution, online gambling) is increasing and becoming more complicated. If not promptly prevented, it can seriously affect the reputation of State agencies, potentially causing the risk of losing their reputation.cyber security, information security, increased crimes related to betting, gambling, prostitution...

In Nghe An, through the review, no activities of taking advantage of posting advertising content, betting, online gambling, prostitution on the websites of State agencies have been detected. However, some websites have been found to post unverified advertising content for medical examination and treatment products and services, causing negative reactions and damage to people when they trust to contact or use the products and services; posing a potential risk for subjects to take advantage of posting content that is against the law, causing loss of network security and information security; and increasing crimes related to betting, gambling, and prostitution.

From the above situation, to strengthen network security, information security, prevent advertising activities of football betting, prostitution, online gambling, the Provincial Police Department requests departments, branches, sectors, People's Committees of districts, cities, and towns to direct functional units to proactively implement the following measures:

- Immediately review articles advertising football betting, prostitution, and online gambling on the website to promptly remove them.

- Strengthen measures to ensure information security and safety, proactively review and fix existing weaknesses and security loopholes (if any); add the feature to store users' IP addresses when posting content to the website to serve verification when necessary.

- Develop regulations for managing and operating the website, which clearly stipulate the checking and censoring of user-posted content before allowing it to be displayed on the website....