Vietnam Bans Unskippable Ads (phunuonline.com.vn) 50
Vietnam will begin enforcing new online advertising rules in February 2026 that ban forced video ads longer than five seconds and must allow users to close ads with just one tap. "Furthermore, platforms must provide clear icons and instructions for users to report advertisements that violate the law, and allow them to opt out, turn off, or stop viewing inappropriate ads," reports a local news outlet (translated to English). "These reports must be received and processed promptly, and the results communicated to users as required." From the report: In cases where the entity posting the infringing advertisement cannot be identified or where specialized laws do not have specific regulations, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is the focal agency to receive notifications and send requests to block or remove the advertisement to organizations and businesses providing online advertising services in Vietnam.
Advertisers, advertising service providers, and advertising transmission and distribution units are responsible for blocking and removing infringing advertisements within 24 hours of receiving a request from the competent authority. For advertisements that infringe on national security, the blocking and removal must be carried out immediately, no later than 24 hours.
In case of non-compliance, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in coordination with the Ministry of Public Security, will apply technical measures to block infringing advertisements and services and handle the matter according to the law. Telecommunications companies and Internet service providers must also implement technical measures to block access to infringing advertisements within 24 hours of receiving a request.
Advertisers, advertising service providers, and advertising transmission and distribution units are responsible for blocking and removing infringing advertisements within 24 hours of receiving a request from the competent authority. For advertisements that infringe on national security, the blocking and removal must be carried out immediately, no later than 24 hours.
In case of non-compliance, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in coordination with the Ministry of Public Security, will apply technical measures to block infringing advertisements and services and handle the matter according to the law. Telecommunications companies and Internet service providers must also implement technical measures to block access to infringing advertisements within 24 hours of receiving a request.
Paywalls (Score:1)
This will lead to two things: more paywalls to replace the forgone ad revenue, and more service providers discontinuing service in Vietnam.
Re:Paywalls, nope (Score:5, Insightful)
I suggest that this will create new, better advertisements.
One of the problems with advertising is little to no feedback on bad ads. They negotiate with the media company, not the media consumer. The media company will put up with far more than the consumer, but the consumer eventually leaves the media customer if they make bad advertisements.
The truth is internet advertisement has a HORRIBLE click through rate. TV, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines, etc. all have better effects and that is why they charge more. They are worth the extra money.
We all know that most people do not sit around and watch the 30 second or more advertisement on their phones. We look away, check our subway stop, pay attention to the movie our parents/kids are watching in the same room, etc. etc.
5 seconds is a good deal for the advertisers. We actually watch that.
So lets stop letting these morons think they are tricking us into watching long internet ads. We are not, they are wasting their money and our time.
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One of the problems with advertising is little to no feedback on bad ads.
Can you think of a good ad?
I certainly clicked on Google ads but I don't know that I have seen a tolerable video ad on the Internet. You'd think that statistically a few of them would be tolerable or amusing. But the only ads I remember is when I'd rather pay a little extra to a competitor than give money to a company whose obnoxious ad I saw.
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One of the problems with advertising is little to no feedback on bad ads.
Can you think of a good ad?
I certainly clicked on Google ads but I don't know that I have seen a tolerable video ad on the Internet. You'd think that statistically a few of them would be tolerable or amusing. But the only ads I remember is when I'd rather pay a little extra to a competitor than give money to a company whose obnoxious ad I saw.
The old Bunnings TV ads (for the Australians playing along at home). Simple, inoffensive and just conveyed the specials of the week with minimal fuss and none of those SHOCK, LOUD, BUYBUYBUY tactics that others used.
I'm not against advertising per se... but it's become so obnoxious and so common that I stopped watching broadcast TV in the 2000s because of it and won't go on the internet without an adblocker of some description.
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One of the problems with advertising is little to no feedback on bad ads.
Can you think of a good ad? I certainly clicked on Google ads but I don't know that I have seen a tolerable video ad on the Internet. You'd think that statistically a few of them would be tolerable or amusing. But the only ads I remember is when I'd rather pay a little extra to a competitor than give money to a company whose obnoxious ad I saw.
The old Bunnings TV ads (for the Australians playing along at home). Simple, inoffensive and just conveyed the specials of the week with minimal fuss and none of those SHOCK, LOUD, BUYBUYBUY tactics that others used. I'm not against advertising per se... but it's become so obnoxious and so common that I stopped watching broadcast TV in the 2000s because of it and won't go on the internet without an adblocker of some description.
TV ads used to be stuff like "Avoid the Noid," "Where's the beef?" "Can you hear me now?" or other catch-phrase or character driven ads. Progressive is about the only one left doing that, and it's so obnoxious with its characters that only one of them is tolerable anymore, and he almost had his own sitcom spin-off during the ramp-up of fast made shows, but it died quickly.
TV ads now are people smiling and partying around a pool while the fast-talking narrator describes side-effects of whatever drug their pu
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The only effective form of advertising for me is giving out free samples of your product to reviewers. Of course, if your product is crap, or relies on a reality distortion field to sell, that isn't very effective either.
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Under your preference, what would be the appropriate venue for public service announcements or for advertising product review publications?
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People who are interested in a thing will be looking at things like news sites and YouTube channels related to it.
I generally won't buy stuff without good reviews anyway.
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Looking at news or other information related to a product doesn't mean you're intending to buy that product - you might already have that product and want to learn how to make better use of it etc.
But to answer the parent's question:
Under your preference, what would be the appropriate venue for public service announcements or for advertising product review publications?
This would be search engines where you've openly declared that you're considering buying a product (eg by using the "shopping" option on google).
If i've performed a search for phones because i'm trying to buy a new phone i'm happy to see advertisements (which are marked as such)
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I don't really want any ads. Unbiased reviews when I ask for them, or on feeds I watch.
When it comes time to buy, I want the best combination of low price and decent service. Ads are of no help, unless they change radically to show price and terms of sale, and even then I'm going to check.
It boggles the mind that most ads lack the basic info that would make me want to click on them.
Oh, and no tracking nonsense. You get one referral parameter when I click on the ad, and it has to be a simple one that only id
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Giving out free samples too me, works too.
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Depends what it is. I'm not giving them my address for some free cat food.
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One of the problems with advertising is little to no feedback on bad ads.
This won't help that. Whatever meaningful feedback it generates will be completely overwhelmed by people who feel that all ads are bad, that it is inherently to advertising, that advertising cannot be good, and the people who do it should be buried in a shallow grave with quicklime.
Any other kind of feedback will be statistical noise.
Re:Paywalls, nope (Score:4, Interesting)
Those who feel all ads are bad are not going to respond to advertising in any positive way, so it's a waste of time trying.
The current approach taken by advertisers seems to be that if someone isn't responding to ads its because the ads are not aggressive enough, but this usually has the opposite effect - users can ignore simple text or banner ads quite easily and will think nothing of it. But obnoxious ads that blare out irritating sounds in an otherwise quiet environment or disrupt the flow of what you're trying to do, unskippable ads or those the user has to explicitly close/skip serve to irritate and can have the opposite effect - you might remember the product, but you now associate it with this annoyance and will actively avoid the product.
I've done that on many occasions, i see a product or brand in a supermarket and it reminds me of an obnoxious ad i saw before, so i buy one of their competitors instead.
Re: (Score:2)
More than 100 years ago, the founder of a large department store said "Half of all the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The problem is, I don't know which half."
That's the point, he didn't know.
Now the technology exists to find out, so you can cut out the wasted spending and use that money for something more productive.
Shoving ever more obnoxious ads at someone doesn't work, it irritates them and causes them to remember the product or brand in a negative light.
Re:Paywalls, nope (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not how advertising works. It's propaganda. Like all propaganda, it's about repeating things until your brain makes room for it in your memory. Good ad, bad ad, doesn't matter. It's about presence in your subconscious:
If you go into a store and don't know what exactly to buy, you'll buy something familiar. What's familiar? That which you recognize. A brand name you've heard of, usually.
Maybe you remember that you don't like that brand. You're annoyed about their intrusive ads, and you refuse to buy their product. That's ok. At the next party you attend, someone gets you started and you complain about that brand. Tell it like it is. Someone overhears you and wonders what the fuss is about. Wonders if you're too harsh. Wonders if the product is any good. Free advertising to others!
The right way to think of propaganda is as a mind virus (meme). If you engage with it to accept it or to fight it, you've lost the battle: Your brain is infected.
The only winning move is not to play. Use adblockers. Don't go into a store, let someone else buy the groceries. Never watch live sports, watch them with a delay and an ad removal system. You get the point.
You can still go in store (Score:3)
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TL;DR: It's not just refusing to play, you need to lock them up.
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Re: Paywalls (Score:3)
It will lead to 10 ads that are each five seconds long and sequenced together.
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No it won't.
If they could make money from paywalls, they'd have more paywalls.
And many of us would welcome paywalls as a replacement for ads anyway. So I'm not even sure why you're putting it the way you are. I'd rather be the customer of the media I consume. You prefer to the corporations to dictate what you read. I like my option better.
Pay or consent (Score:2)
If they could make money from paywalls, they'd have more paywalls.
Newspapers and Facebook are heading that way with "pay or consent" schemes in GDPR territories.
And many of us would welcome paywalls as a replacement for ads anyway.
I've noticed a lot of comments to Slashdot articles stating that they didn't read the featured article on account of having to buy a month's subscription just to read one article.
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Communism is about government controlling all means of production, albeit in the name of the workers. It's not about workers controlling it, or else, it would have been just like a private company w/o a hierarchical management
You are right that they aren't any good at communism: in fact, they have had a capitalist economy since the 90s. In fact, I daresay Vietnam managed to pull off what both China and Russia probably wish they could
New York, huh? (Score:2)
How would one skip the ads on Times Square? [timessquarenyc.org]
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https://nypost.com/2026/01/05/us-news/nyc-wegmans-storing-shoppers-facial-scans-biometric-data-to-id-customers-boost-security/
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They can say anything they like. What matters is how the economy operates. Vietnam pretty much has a free enterprise economy for all practical purposes, just like China did before President Xi took over. Maybe communists will claim that this is the true communism, since they deny that China, Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea,... were at any time communist?
Yeah, nationalism of any country would obviously sell better than Marxism or Leninism. But maybe the Communist Party should change its name to somethi
No true Communist (Score:2)
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Vietnam hasn't been communist since the 1990s. As an economy, they are a far more liberated economy than the US. Only at the political level, the Communist Party of Vietnam retains its monopoly on power, but unlike China, doesn't have a tough control on its citizens. In fact, it's the only "communist" country whose name doesn't include the word "People's" or "Democratic": its official name is the "Socialist Republic of Vietnam"
I welcome this law, but would also have wished for one more thing. When an
Banning unskippable ads! (Score:2)
This is why we couldn't beat them in that one weird old war.
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Well it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?
Don't ask me but come on lads
Don't want unskippable ads!
And it's five, six, seven, we're heading for those pearly gates,
Look out, uh-oh, don't be a noob
We've roused the wrath of YouTube!
(Apologies to Country Joe and the Fish)
Re: (Score:3)
As long as they have a mute button, it's really no problem. I mute and switch tabs (or just look at one of my other monitors) to watch a different video, and eventually remember and swich back to the one with the ad, rewind from where ever it got to, and watch the ad-free content.
I agree except I do think the advertising industry should be forced to behave in a civilized manner. Just because there are workarounds for antisocial, predatory and manipulative practices doesn't mean they should be tolerated. So I think this kind of law is a good thing.
But I think the meat of your post is valid. I refuse to submit myself to advertisement. I'll mute it, hide it, read something for 15 seconds, or otherwise distract myself specifically to not let the advertiser do to me what they want
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just replace them with infomercials and call in to (Score:2)
just replace them with infomercials and call in to lose quiz shows!
Bad Move (Score:2)
Gap between 5s ads? (Score:2)
I don't see any wording in the law to provide a gap between successive 5s ads, so companies are free to just string together 20 of these 5s ads and capture you for 100 seconds.
Legal code is like Software code. Intentionally leaving backdoors in it means it was theatre all along.