The Wisdom of the Crowd: Understanding Online Personal Privacy in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Patrick E. Sharbaugh Abstract With more than 30 percent of the worlds population now connected to the Internet, online personal privacy has become a top concern among citizens of many nations and regions, and it has become clear that attitudes about and conceptions of online privacy represent a nexus of significant change in the construction of culture, society, and citizenship. These attitudes and conceptions may differ significantly across national borders, therefore examining different notions of privacy may better enable us to understand the changes underway. Using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, this researcher undertook an exploratory study into two research questions: 1) How do Internet users in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam understand and conceive of online personal privacy?, and 2) How concerned are they about personal privacy on the Internet? Rather than imposing Western definitions of privacy on local respondents, this study attempted to infer a conception of Vietnamese privacy values and parameters from responses using methods designed to avoid priming respondents with non-local perceptions of the research topic. The results reveal a more complex conception of personal privacy than those predicted for Vietnam by Hofstedes dimensions of national culture, and one that differs significantly from traditional Western conceptions. In Vietnam, privacy appears to be chiefly understood as a means of safeguarding valuable personal data on the Internet from dangerous individuals who seek to obtain it for malign purposes, rather than a fundamental right, an inviolable aspect of self, or a claim by individuals to be left alone and free from surveillance. Vietnamese appear unconcerned about governmental or organizational scrutiny, and seem to have little regard for privacy policies or regulations. In this, the Vietnamese conception of online privacy appears to depart significantly from longstanding notions of privacy that have informed discourse, social practice, regulatory efforts and citizenship in the Western hemisphere for more than a century and which continue to influence current debates and policy decisions. Key Words: Internet, Privacy, Vietnam, Hofstede, collectivism, online, Asia, identity, autonomy, SNS, citizenship. ***** 1. Introduction Privacy-related news, surveys, and policy debates seems to make headlines on a daily basis in the developed nations of the Western hemisphere. Yet in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, where more than 30% of this developing nations 90 million residents are online, many of them using Web-connected smartphones and social network platforms such as Facebook, Twitter,

LinkedIn, and Google+, the topic of personal privacy has been entirely absent from the national conversation. Why? A slew of digital and Internet-based recent technological developments are making the intimate details of our personal lives vastly more transparent to the online world, both with our knowledge and consent and, often, without either. Online personal privacy has therefore become a top concern, not just among American consumers,1 2 but among all manner of Internet users of many nations and regions. Yet at the same time, more people continue to share more information about themselves than ever before.3 This paradox suggests that our feelings about privacy what it is and how important it is to us are rather more complicated than they would appear. Its become plain that online privacy represents a nexus of profound change in the construction of culture and society, yet exactly what is changing is not yet clear. Online privacy has been studied extensively in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and Canada, yet far fewer studies have been conducted in Asia, where traditional Confucian and collectivist cultures tend to place a lower premium on Western-based normative values relating to individual rights and concerns. To this researchers knowledge, the privacy attitudes of Vietnamese Internet users have not been examined in any close capacity. Vietnam presents a unique lens through which to view these issues and questions, and may shed some light on the changing nature of privacy and associated attitudes about citizenship, participation, and consumerism in the modern era. This paper therefore undertakes a benchmark exploratory study of online personal privacy attitudes and conceptions in Vietnam, a culture quite distinct from modern Western traditions as well as from other more developed Asian societies, yet also representative in many ways of traditional Confucian-oriented Asian cultures. Its purpose is to better understand culturallyspecific conceptions of privacy in Vietnam and assess attitudes regarding it among the Vietnamese population as it relates to the nature of citizenship and society. 3. Privacy Theorized Many current privacy polls and surveys take as their chief object attitudes about the collection of personal data by third parties online. Indeed, access to, and concerns over abuse of, personally identifying information on the Internet are at the forefront of many online privacy debates, given the increased ability for computer networks to collect, analyze, and distribute such information. Yet the confidentiality of personal data (also known as information or data security) is, historically, only one aspect of mainstream Western conceptions of privacy, and not necessarily the most important. Privacy has long been understood to be a multidimensional notion, a right that encompasses personal autonomy, democratic participation, social coordination, and identity and reputation management.4 The most widely influential conceptions of online privacy derive from those established in regards to traditional media.5 One of the first and best known attempts to address this issue was Warren and Brandeis 1890 essay The Right to Privacy in Harvard Law Review, in which the authors noted the need to protect the privacy of private life6 in response to the proliferation at that time of newspapers and portable cameras in the United States.

Brandeis later stated that the U.S. Constitution and the Fourth Amendment are intended specifically to protect: ...the right to be let alone the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment.7 Rachaels likewise claims that a right to privacy asserts a unique interest: that of being able to limit other peoples observation of us or access to information about us even if we have certain knowledge that the observation or information would not be used to our detriment or used at all.8 Schoeman proposes privacy as a state or condition of limited access to other parties. Individuals have privacy to the extent that others have restricted access to information about them, to the intimacies of their lives, to their thoughts or their bodies.9 In other words, as Sheehan writes, privacy is protecting individuals from any overreaching control of others.10 Many have suggested that privacy is an essential aspect of autonomy. Johnson, for example, asserts that Autonomy is inconceivable without privacy. 11 Reiman claims privacy is foundational to the creation of individual identity. He understands privacy as the complex social ritual by which we recognize our selves as our own.12 Privacy is widely accepted as a basic human right arising from the nature of the relationship between the individual and society.13 14 15 16 17 Online security expert Bruce Schneier has written that, Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect, characterizing the current debate as one of individual liberty versus control by the state.18 Thompson claims that privacy is an extension of the fundamental right to person and property acknowledged in legal codes the world over that the right to privacy simply protects something that is presupposed by both personal and property rights.19 Indeed, in the U.S. it is this very argument that underlies some of the most significant judicial decisions on privacy of the 20th century, including Roe vs. Wade. Lee theorizes privacy in the context of Internet communications as inextricable from the notion of intrusion that is, the interest and ability to control online access to ones self in order to maintain solitude.20 In this conception, privacy concerns not just what information others take but what others can see. Here, any form of unauthorized online surveillance, for example, is as much a violation of personal privacy as intercepting and capturing personal emails or credit card information. In recent years European nations have begun openly wrestling with theoretical notions regarding privacy, a direct response to developments on the Internet. Privacy advocates in Europe have begun to argue for a right to control and possibly erase the information that attaches to personal identities on the Internet, making the case for a right to be forgotten on the Internet. Werro observes that Swiss law, being representative of many European laws, recognizes what it calls the rights of the personality, which may very soon confer the right of Internet users to fully control any and all information about themselves online:

Dignity, honor, and the right to respect ones private life and to keep certain things secret, as well as the right to the respect of ones private life and other aspects of privacy, are all part of these fundamental rights of the person, which are protected both in the civil code, against private persons, and in the Swiss Federal Constitution as well as in the European Convention on Human Rights against the State.21 Crucially, these theoretical conceptions, which variously articulate root ideas that most societies in the Western hemisphere take as fundamental and which underpin much of the current legal and political debate over online privacy, are not predicated primarily upon the possibility of misuse of personal information but simply on the possibility of unauthorized access to something that belongs to and is inherent to our personal identities as individual, autonomous human beings. It is not what Westerners worry people will do with what they hold as personal and private that has traditionally concerned them; rather, it is the principle of inviolability of self, and all the information that attends it, from any entity, person, or group that provides the bedrock of Western conceptions of privacy. Online information systems scholar Kenneth Laudon has proposed a definition of privacy that strikes this researcher as satisfactorily encompassing the multiple dimensions that inform traditional Western conceptions. Online privacy, states Laudon, is the claim of individuals to be left alone, free from surveillance, or interference from other individuals or organizations including the state.22 2. Rationale and Background Research has shown that individual experiences, values and perceptions shape online privacy attitudes,23 though not always according to clear patterns. Many studies have revealed that concerns about privacy are culturally informed.24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 The extant literature (which is limited in its examination of privacy in Asia) suggests that people in a higher collectivist culture (e.g. India, Singapore or Vietnam) may have a higher tolerance for sharing personal information, online and otherwise.32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 For the collective good of an institution or a society, people from a collectivist culture are aware of and often even endorse institutional scrutiny in their society.45 Therefore, online users may not feel the same urgency to protect their personal information as those in highly individualistic cultures such as the United States and Europe, where people have low tolerance for institutional scrutiny. Westin46 observes that every society values privacy in some form, but its expression and the practices that attend it vary significantly across cultures and nations. Different nationalities can therefore be expected to exhibit different cultural values which may in turn influence along with other factors the levels of privacy concern among individuals in each country. Regulations and laws regarding the collection and use of personal information also differ from culture to culture. Many of the most powerful and influential commercial interests in the world are increasingly based on new Internet technologies for which the sharing and mining of personal information is widespread and commonplace indeed, it is a foundational principle of

many of these companies business models. As with the Internet itself, these technologies, and the commercial entities they have enabled, have emerged from board rooms, startup foundries, tech labs and garages in North America and Europe, but they are quickly becoming global in reach and membership. In a world that is becoming more reliant upon Internet-based platforms and services every day, Web-based commercial operators can have enormous reach across national borders, irrespective of language, culture, local and regional laws, and other barriers. Of the 850 million people using Facebook at the beginning of 2012, for example, a full 80 percent are outside of the United States, accessing the SNSs many apps, games, messaging services, commercial partners and, critically, interacting with its privacy safeguards (or lack thereof) in more than 70 languages.47 Tens of thousands of much smaller entities are scattered across the Web like so much confetti, equally available to netizens everywhere. Yet many, perhaps most, of these services are cultural artifacts of developed nations in the Western world, where conceptions of personal privacy are predicated upon Enlightenment-era philosophies regarding individual rights, autonomy, identity, citizenship, and the role of the State as regards the individual. The underlying assumptions embedded in those conceptions of privacy do not necessarily fit cultural assumptions in other parts of the world. It stands to reason that Vietnam, whose unique history and culture sets it apart from other Southeast Asian nations and, indeed, from any nation, would also have conceptions of and attitudes toward online personal privacy that are specific to its national culture. With a population of 90 million, Vietnam is the worlds 13th most populous nation. Internet penetration in the nation has grown over 12,000% in the past decade among the fastest rates of growth in the world to a total current penetration of 31% (compared to a world average of 32.7%, Europes 61% average, and an overall penetration across Asia of 26.2%.48 That puts Vietnam at a level equal to that of China, Philippines, and Thailand. While Vietnam has many similarities to China, with which it shares a border, it is quite distinct culturally. Like China, Vietnam is a single-party Communist state which underwent its own transition to free-market reforms in the late 1980s, reforms which have fueled an enormous lift in the standard of living, as well as a corresponding rise in wealth disparity. As in China, corruption is endemic at every level of society. Vietnam also adheres to ancient Confucian ideals of individual and social behavior, so-called Asian values such as collectivism, a harmonious social dynamic, highly hierarchical state and social structures, deep respect for authority and seniority, and a tightly-knit extended family. Yet compared to China, Vietnam puts fewer resources into restricting online content for its citizens. (Although filtering remains severe, the Party tends to favor surveillance. Even so, only China leads Vietnam in the number of netizens imprisoned for expressing unacceptable political views.49) The collectivist impulse in Vietnam is further strengthened by the strong communist ideology that has prevailed in the nation since 1945, when Ho Chi Minh declared the countrys sovereign independence from French colonial rule. From that point, through the departure of the French in 1954, steadfast throughout the decades-long military conflict with America that ended with reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1975, unfazed by the free-market economic reforms (doi moi) of the late 1980s, and even to today, the Communist Party in Vietnam has retained an iron grip on virtually every aspect of society. Despite the turbocharged capitalism

presently gripping the country, Vietnam retains a highly collectivist social tradition that permeates every aspect of the nations social fabric. The concepts of personal information protection and data privacy are still new to Vietnam. The current legal framework lacks many of the most fundamental regulations on the protection of such information.50 To date, Vietnam has no comprehensive privacy legislation and the few existing regulations are obscure and widely ignored.51 The foundation of what best represents the nations privacy law is Article 38 of the 2005 Civil Code, which stipulates a right to confidentiality of personal life, stating that the collection or disclosure of the private information of a person must be under his or her agreement and consent. Addressing the collection of information confidentiality specifically in electronic transactions, article 46 of the 2005 Law on E-Transactions states: Agencies, organizations and individuals must not use, provide or disclose information on private and personal affairs or information of other agencies, organizations and/or individuals which is accessible by them or under their control in e-transactions without the latters consent, unless otherwise provided for by law.52 Yet few Vietnamese citizens know these laws even exist, and they are rarely if ever called upon in practice.53 The few privacy suits that have been brought in Vietnam have either been settled out of court or have been dropped altogether. Its difficult for the courts or private citizens to know exactly how these laws are applied in practice or what specific aspects of private life or individual confidentiality they cover, as theyve so rarely been tested. Even when a suit is brought, the results are unknown court records are ostensibly part of the public record in Vietnam, but in practice the proceedings and decisions of every case are kept secret, even to licensed attorneys. Every citizen, attorney, government official, and potential litigant understands that the outcome of any given case is as likely to be the result of bribery as it is judicial consideration, therefore the law itself is disregarded by most as both an invalid and ineffective arbiter of justice. Further, Vietnamese culture discourages private litigation as a counterproductive and pointlessly expensive loss of face.54 Complicating all of this is the fact that Vietnam is not a common law system, so legal precedent has no authority or standing. Where one judge may decide in favor of a plaintiff, another the following year, in precisely the same kind of case, may find for the defendant. Needless to say, this does not encourage the development of a common legal understanding of privacy.55 Legal regulations can therefore shed little light on Vietnamese conceptions of privacy or attitudes toward it, much less the rights or social practices that may attend it. Awareness and understanding of the issue on the part of businesses and the general public is similarly limited. Of 290 Vietnamese commercial websites surveyed by the Vietnam eCommerce and Information Technology Agency (VECITA) in 2007, only 75 of them (26%) had privacy policies available for viewing.56

Examining Vietnam in the light of Geert Hofstedes dimensions of national culture reveals a profile quite distinct from other East or Southeast Asian nations. Under Hofstedes model, Vietnam has a high Power Distance index of 70. Individuals in high PDI countries may be expected to exhibit higher levels of privacy concerns based on previous findings that high PDI countries exhibit lower levels of trust.57 With an Individualism score of just 20, Vietnam is a deeply collectivistic society. People in such societies have been shown to accept more easily the intrusion by groups and organizations into Figure 1 their personal life and to have more trust and faith in other individuals than those in highly individualist societies.58 Highly Masculine cultures tend to place greater emphasis on material success, and perhaps therefore upon the economic benefits of using private information over the wish for privacy control.59 Vietnam scores 40 on the MAS dimension and as such should be expected to place less emphasis on privacy controls and concerns. Societies with a high UAI tend to reduce uncertainty through the use of clear written rules and regulations, and may be more likely to have higher levels of government regulation of privacy.60 Vietnams low score of 30 UAI suggests privacy concerns there should be as minimal as its regulatory framework regarding privacy. Vietnam scores 80 on the LTO dimension a relatively high mark. The values of the LongTerm Orientation dimension are rooted in the works and life of Confucius; the dimensions defining features all point to a culture of relative comfort with sharing personal information. In summary, Vietnams IDV, UAI, and LTO scores all predict that Internet users there should feel less concern about online personal privacy and should feel more comfortable with sharing personal information with third-party groups and individuals. Its scores along the PDI and MAS dimensions, however, suggest just the opposite: greater concern and less willingness to share personal information. 1 4. Literature A close examination of the literature shows that previous online privacy studies have mostly been confined to a national scale and have only rarely addressed international or cross-cultural issues. The relatively few studies of privacy attitudes outside of North America and Europe have
1

Clearly, all five dimensions of Hofstedes model for Vietnam cannot accurately predict privacy concerns there. This result itself suggests that further research is needed to better understand the relevance of Hofstedes dimensions of national culture as they relate to cultural values such as privacy.

tended to limit their examinations to the attitudes of users in developed nations or more developed regions of developing nations (namely Singapore, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, Bangalore and Argentina), and often have often done so within the context of e-commerce or direct marketing. To this researchers knowledge, none has examined Vietnamese Internet users in any comprehensive capacity. Cultural values are known to affect a populations attitudes towards privacy.61 62 Yet national culture remains a relatively little studied factor in the development and maintenance of online privacy attitudes and behaviors. Scholars such as Westin63 and De Boni64 have suggested that conceptions of personal privacy per se are at root dependent upon and influenced by culture, and that individuals concern with privacy, and the behavior resulting from those concerns, can be influenced by their cultural values.65 66 67 A number of authors and researchers have indeed suggested that the prevalent approach to privacy by corporate and commercial entities on the Internet follows the neoliberal tradition prevalent in the U.S. and other Western nations, and hence is culturally biased.
68 69 70

Tarn and Hamamoto 71 studied current status and practices regarding online privacy in Japan in the context of control systems and commercial privacy policies, using two high-profile case studies to exemplify the problems and dilemmas encountered by two Japanese enterprises. Although noting that the concept of privacy in Japan is different than in Western countries, the researchers state that online privacy is nonetheless very important to Japanese Internet users and that the Internet, in creating a new environment for privacy, may be influencing Japanese perceptions of privacy in general. Several authors have suggested that a countrys regulatory approach to privacy is closely linked to the level of privacy concern in that country. 72 73 74 75 As privacy concerns among the populations increase, more restrictive laws and regulations are put into place by legislators and policymakers. Milberg et al. 76 found support for this positive relationship between the level of privacy concern and the level of governmental involvement in corporate management of information privacy. Bellman et al. 77 compared Internet users in 38 countries, again using legal regulations as a means of revealing concern for information privacy. They hypothesized three explanations for differences in privacy concerns: culture, Internet experience, and political desires using the Hofstede dimensions to describe national culture. They found that only culture and Internet experience were significant in this regard, and that regulatory actions by the State seemed to play little or no role in determining citizens attitudes toward online privacy. Fusilier and Durlabhji found that in a less individualistic culture such as India, social factors such as collectivist values may be an important influence on online behavior. 78 Park and Jun found significant differences in Internet usage and the perceived risks of Internet shopping between Korean and American consumers. They also found that cultural differences have an impact upon Internet usage and perceived risks associated with online purchases. 79 In comparing Japanese and American concerns on personal privacy in the context of direct marketing campaigns, Maynard and Taylor 80 found that Japanese respondents were much more concerned about privacy issues than U.S. respondents. Milne, et al. 81 compared how consumers from Argentina and United States feel about consumer privacy issues and direct

marketing. The Argentine results suggested that concern for privacy was not high (11 percent), compared to 46 percent of the U.S. respondents in similar earlier surveys. In comparing American and Taiwan survey respondents, Lee 82 found that consumers from Taiwan are not as concerned as U.S. consumers with privacy issues in direct marketing. In an exploratory study of attitudes among high-tech industry workers in India, Kumaraguru 83 found less concern and awareness about privacy among Indians when comparing the results with those for Americans, with the Indian residents exhibiting much higher trust of government and businesses with their personal information. Several comparative studies to date have used the dimensions of national culture developed by Hofstede 84 to examine multinational and cross-cultural differences in personal information privacy. Cho for example, surveyed how Internet users from five multinational cities Bangalore, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney and New York perceived and coped with online privacy. They found that Internet users concerns varied significantly across nationalities, and that Internet users from countries with a high IDV culture did in fact exhibit higher levels of concern about online privacy than those from low IDV countries. 85 Chiou 86 examined cross-cultural perceptions of privacy among residents of the U.S., Vietnam, Indonesia, and Taiwan, finding that the more collectivistic Asian cultures tended to be less sensitive to the sharing of personal information than Americans in the study. They also found that American participants tended to lean towards a more legislative solution to perceived problems of privacy, while Vietnamese and Indonesian participants did not express any significant desire for personal privacy to be legislated. This data suggests that people in a higher collectivist culture (e.g. Korea, Singapore or Vietnam) may have a higher tolerance for sharing their personal information. For the collective good of an institution or a society, people from a collectivist culture are aware of and often even endorse institutional scrutiny in their society.87 Therefore, online users may not feel the same urgency to protect their personal information as those in a highly individualistic culture like the U.S., where people have low tolerance for institutional scrutiny. Due to the significant influence of communist and collectivist traditions in Vietnam, for example, its reasonable to expect Vietnamese Internet users to feel a lower threat to their privacy rights than people from a highly individualist culture like America or Australia. Based upon the existing literature, the theoretical background presented here, and the paucity of research conducted on Internet privacy attitudes in Vietnam, the following exploratory research questions were formulated: RQ1: How do Vietnamese Internet users understand and conceive of online personal privacy? RQ2: How concerned are Vietnamese Internet users about Internet privacy? 5. Methods This exploratory study took a methodological approach to the research subject that allowed for the greatest amount of latitude and openness to identifying culturally specific conceptions of online privacy and the kinds of online personal information that are considered private to Vietnamese Internet users. Data collection took the form of three independent research

instruments: 1) structured focus group interviews of several homogeneous segments of the local population of Internet users, conducted in Vietnamese language by a moderator of Vietnamese nationality, 2) an interactive online qualitative research platform, utilizing 64 teen and young-adult participants in Hanoi and Saigon, implemented under our supervision by U.K.based market research firm Cimigo in late 2011, also conducted in Vietnamese language, and 3) a single metric on an annual random telephone survey (also with assistance from Cimigo) of 3,405 Vietnamese Internet users in 12 cities in late 2011. The methodology of the focus groups was specifically designed to presume none of the conceptions of privacy that have been popularized in the majority of the existing research, nearly all of which are based in Western philosophical and cultural traditions that may have little or no relevance to contemporary Vietnamese cultural values. Rather than imposing upon the respondents any of the popular definitions of privacy that appear in the existing literature, this studys objective was to examine Vietnamese attitudes toward online personal information in general and infer a local conceptual definition of privacy from those results. Braunstein et al.88 have noted that any direct study of privacy, in which privacy and its possible violations are the primary topic of discussion, is inherently problematic because of the strong emotional reaction elicited by the subject among many individuals. This emotional aspect makes it difficult to accurately evaluate privacy concern, as directly asking about a privacy issue may result in an emotional reaction and, subsequently, a biased response due to a priming effect upon the respondents. Braunstein therefore recommends utilizing indirect techniques to measure privacy concerns wherever possible. In this researchers opinion, it seems similarly likely that another priming effect might occur in studying privacy in any non-Western context: one in which the usage of English words like privacy, or even the use of English itself, might unconsciously or otherwise prime subjects to provide answers that are in keeping with what they understand of Western ideas about privacy, as they could be perceived as being loaded with Western values and semiotic connotations. This is particularly true in a Vietnamese context, where traditional Confucian values and ideals prevail. Confucian ideals, often referred to as Asian values, encompass a range of social and individual characteristics that can often be vexing for those from Western liberal democratic traditions to grasp. For the purposes of this study, the most significant of them include a preference for social harmony and consensus (as opposed to confrontation and dissent); a consideration for the welfare and collective well-being of the community or group (rather than the interests or well-being of the individual); and an abiding loyalty and respect for authority figures, hierarchy, and seniority. It is also important to take into account the powerful Asian concept of face, a complicated concept without a perfect analogue in the West. Best understood as a combination of social standing, reputation, influence, dignity, and honor, it plays an enormous role in social settings and must taken into consideration during all daily interactions, as it can have a significant impact on the outcome of any communications. In group settings particularly, Vietnamese residents would be very aware of wishing to preserve face, not only for themselves but out of respect for authority figures for an interlocutor, who would likely appear to be someone in a

position of authority or seniority (by dint of association with a university or business, age, estimated salary, job title, etc.). In the setting of a focus group, this means that Vietnamese group members may often be inclined to provide answers that will preserve face for a moderator, i.e. replying in terms of what they believe the moderator wishes to hear or which will support his or her line of questioning, rather than genuine responses that accurately reflect the respondents beliefs and attitudes. This study therefore made every effort to mitigate these cultural factors by utilizing a trained, professional Vietnamese moderator who conducted the focus groups in Vietnamese language. The Vietnamese language does not have a perfect analogue for the English word privacy (which is interesting in itself). Therefore the moderator used the Vietnamese phrase bo mt thng tin c nhn trn mng, which loosely translates as confidential online personal information. Interview sessions were conducted at a reserved meeting room on at RMIT University on three consecutive weekends in January 2012. Each group comprised 5-7 individuals, and focus group interview sessions lasted approximately 1.5 hours each. Individuals in each of the three groups2 were carefully selected to adhere to similar bands regarding age and socioeconomic/career status. Participants were recruited using a purposive sampling technique designed to assure homogeneous groups across four population segments: Group 1: Teens (14-17), medium to heavy Internet users. Group 2: Young adult ( 18-22) comprising high school and university students, heavy Internet users. Group 3: Young professionals and office workers, moderate Internet users. Participants were recruited according to the following criteria: 1. Vietnamese nationals who have not lived outside of Vietnam. 2. No personal or professional affiliation with RMIT International University Vietnam, the University of South Carolina, or the principal researcher. 3. To the greatest degree possible, participants were strangers to each other. 4. Amount of Internet use should meet the criteria for each sample group: i.e. light (1-2 hours per week); moderate (3-6 hours per week); or heavy (7 or more hours each week). This researcher was present (but not in direct line of sight of respondents) for each focus group session, accompanied by a translator who provided a running account of important points and key discussions. Data used in this research also includes data gathered specifically for this study via an interactive online qualitative platform administrated under the researchers supervision by the Saigon office of U.K.-based market research firm Cimigo. Called CimigoLive, the platform allows researchers to introduce a topic into a closed, moderated online community for discussion via a variety of interactive formats. These include a discussion forum in which community members talk about and debate aspects of a topic; individual member blogs that act as personal diaries in
The researcher had hoped to be able to include additional focus groups comprising senior and/or infrequent Internet users as well, but such did not prove possible within the limited time frame. This lack stands as a significant limitation of the current study.
2

which participants may express more introspective thoughts and feelings on a topic; private moderated chat sessions, which provide real-time dynamic online group interaction and feedback on a topic; and a media gallery, allowing participants to post images and multimedia expressing their thoughts and lifestyle-based behaviors that relate to the topic. For the purposes of this study, the majority of data was gathered using the online moderated chat platform. Purposive sampling was used to recruit respondents to the CimigoLive online qualitative research community for the purpose of investigating conceptions of and attitudes about online personal privacy. Respondents were recruited offline by trained Cimigo interviewers who visited schools, universities, coffee shops, cinemas, and similar locations. Interviewers also utilized a snowball strategy by which they recruited individuals referred to them by former respondents. The n=64 respondents participated in the community for a total of 16 weeks, of which three weeks were dedicated to the discussion of online personal privacy by the community. The sample of respondents discussing online privacy for this study consisted of male and female n=32 teenagers (15-18 years) and n=32 young adults (20-24 years) from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Respondents were recruited according to the following criteria: 1. Regular Internet users (online at least six times per week, bloggers and/or active participants in social networks online) 2. Watch TV regularly (at least four times per week, for approximately two hours each time) 3. Users of personal care products/cosmetics/male grooming products All community members attended a warm-up meeting/briefing before the online discussion began, during which respondents were walked through what was required of them in detail. They participated in games and exercises designed to demonstrate what the community would require of them. They asked questions and were told how the information gathered would be used. Their consent to participate was gained at the end of this warm-up meeting. The parents of respondents between 15 and 18 years were made aware of the activity and provided their consent for their children to be involved. In analysing the data gathered this particular topic, Cimigo researchers built a code frame and tagged data that respondents contributed to all applications on the platform (forum, chat, media galleries, blogs). The tagged data was then exported into a content analysis framework that researchers then used to build findings, analyse and interpret the qualitative data. 5. Results It was arranged that an annual nationwide telephone survey regarding Internet-related opinions conducted by Cimigo would this year include a question regarding levels of concern about online privacy. The question was just one of 28 total questions regarding a variety of Internet-related attitudes and behaviors. Respondents were asked to reply to the question How concerned are you about your privacy when accessing the Internet? on a Likert scale of five escalating measures (Table 1). More than half of the total respondents (n= 3405) expressed either little concern or no concern at all. A mere nine percent suggested they were strongly concerned. Though not

empirically comparable to other recent measures of privacy concern, these results appear almost diametically opposite to those seen in similar recent surveys of privacy concerns in Western nations. Table 1 Q22. How concerned are you about personal privacy when accessing the Internet? Unweighted Base Weighted Base Strongly concerned Slightly concerned Moderately concerned Not really concerned No concern at all

Total 3405 2785 9% 22% 18% 28% 23%

Male 1915 1493 10% 20% 17% 26% 26%

Female 1490 1293 8% 25% 18% 31% 18%

Across the 20 respondents in three focus groups and the 64 participants in CimigoLives online platform, the perceived advantages of the Internet were similar: they included (in no particular order) entertainment, access to news and information, connecting with friends, and savings to time and money.3 The perceived disadvantages of the Internet broke more clearly across the three groups. For teen respondents in the focus groups, some of the Internets main problems were that its too slow, there are too many advertisements, and too many computer viruses. Young adults shared teens unhappiness with the prevalence of viruses and advertisements. To this, they added the problem of spam, noting also that its too difficult to hide personal information online. Office workers cited the proliferation of hi-tech criminals and hackers as a major downside of the online environment, noting as well the resulting consequences: personal information gets made public. Office workers additionally blamed the Internet for making people lazy and less thoughtful, asserting that it has an addictive quality and takes up too much work time. All respondents worried that too much of the information available online is of questionable accuracy, truth, or usefulness. And, finally, all mentioned as a major disadvantage the presence of inappropriate content on the Web, commonly known in Vietnam as known black websites. These include sites that feature either pornographic material or content that is critical of the Communist Party in Vietnam, its policies or members, or which advocates for democracy,

What was not mentioned as advantages or benefits by respondents in both the interactive online platform and the focus groups may be as noteworthy as what was. The most commonly acknowledged benefits of the Internet among residents of developed nations (Brey 2006) that went unmentioned by Vietnamese respondents included: information dissemination (as opposed to gathering and consuming), production and commerce, cultural understanding, and civic engagement.

or which touches on any subject the government of Vietnam has deemed sensitive and therefore unmentionable.4 All respondents in both the focus groups and the online CimigoLive platform were asked about personal information on the Internet. The topic was introduced using the words bo mt thng tin c nhn trn mng, which roughly translates as confidential online personal information (again, there is no perfect analogue for privacy in the Vietnamese language.) There is clearly a belief among young Vietnamese Internet users that people online need to take steps to secure personal information like passwords, bank details and photographs. Fewer numbers said they preferred to keep their list of contacts and friends on social networks private.
Bo mt thng tin c nhn trn mng is about people protecting their privacy keeping their passwords secret on their accounts. On websites, forums and on your computer you can protect your information if you find out how to use the tools that are there. The trouble is when you forget your passwords then it takes effort and time to get back in to your account. Bo mt thng tin c nhn trn mng is when we have things that we can do, methods, to protect important information, like the data that is relevant to us that we dont want competitors and information hunters (hackers) to know. Bo mt thng tin c nhn trn mng is doing things to make sure information, pictures and your personal conversations on the Internet are kept away from people who have bad intentions to use your information over the Internet.

There were also respondents who said that information security on the Internet was not relevant to them.
Nowadays, it is quite safe for ordinary people on the web because our information is not worth much. If you are a government or a celebrity, then you have to be careful, because hackers all over the world are excellent.

Overwhelmingly, the key to assuring personal privacy online was regarding as being strong passwords and tightly guarded login information, rather than website privacy policies or legal frameworks. To several respondents, particularly to teens, a compromised password or login key was viewed as an almost existential threat:
Password is the key to access our personal world. If we lose it, we lose our whole world.

Interestingly, such black content does not include file-sharing sites where copyrighted material is freely traded content which in many Western nations is currently far more contentious than pornography or political advocacy.

Its [the Internet] a beautiful world if we manage to secure our information, but once we fail, that world disappears just like a dream.

Respondents in both the online interactive platform and the focus groups expressed great concern regarding perceived threats to personal information on the Internet and the need to take precautions against data privacy violations. But this concern was overwhelmingly limited to the threat of valuable personal information (in the form of finances or reputation, and, to a lesser degree, personal intellectual property) being stolen or illegitimately acquired by individuals for malicious intent. Respondents expressed little concern about organizations, commercial entities, or the government accessing their information, and little to no discomfort with organizational online surveillance or tracking. Online personal privacy was viewed only through the prism of securing personal information online against malign use by other individuals.
Someone on the Internet can steal our personal information to [impersonate us and] cheat others. Someone hacked my online game account. I had played a long time to build up points, but when I went back to it someone else had been using my account and my points were gone. The hackers sell the points to other gamers. I have worked in an Internet shop and have seen hackers who sit on the computers and get into other peoples bank accounts and mobile phone accounts. They steal the information and use it to purchase things for themselves over the Internet. Even some IT members in my company secretly sell our customer database. It happens a lot these days.

Most had no idea what a browser cookie is or what purpose it might serve. When told what cookies are, respondents rarely expressed any discomfort with this kind of third-party tracking of their browsing behavior. Some found the idea helpful, or at least benign in terms of threats to their personal data privacy.
If its personal computer, its very convenient because we dont have to log in the next time. They cant do anything with that information on which websites we go to, as they dont have our passwords.

Rather than website privacy policies or legal frameworks, the key to personal privacy online among respondents seemed to be strong passwords and tightly guarded login information. Respondents generally had no idea of the purpose of Internet privacy policies. Of those who did

understand them, there was considerable cynicism regarding their actual purpose. Few had ever closely read a privacy policy, and there was general agreement that any given privacy policy exists for one of only three reasons: 1) to ensure the security of the businesss information, not that of the user, 2) to indemnify the business in the event that a users personal information is compromised 3) to prohibit any copyright or IP infringement on the part of the user Clearly, none of these rationales would appear to be in the users interests.
I dont read it much. Its too long and Im lazy to read it. Generally, its about [their] information security, not giving their information to other people, etc. Just that simple. ... they have them [privacy policies] to secure their own information. ...they need to secure their own information first. When our information is stolen, its our matter or just a secondary issue to them in terms of our information issues, they dont care.

Respondents were universally unaware of Article 46 of the 2005 Law on E-Transactions. When it was read to them, they dismissed it as being deliberately vague, unavailable or not applicable to ordinary citizens, and easily circumvented for those with the wherewithal to do so.
It may just apply to big companies and organizations. They need information security and they can sue when someone violates it. At present mostly big companies, organizations or such people as celebrities and models have private information, personal photos that they can make use of the law to sue when its violated. Normal people like us dont have anything that serious to feel violated that much to need this law. Its more for organizations and companies. Were just individuals, there are probably not many people finding us, searching our information.

Respondents showed little concern over the accessibility of personal information like individual purchase history and browsing history except insofar as that information might be of value to an individual with malicious intent. Indeed, many found the idea of companies tracking their purchase and browsing history potentially helpful or otherwise benign. The overall conception of online personal privacy in Vietnam revealed is one in which privacy is a means of safeguarding valuable personal information from dangerous individuals who seek to obtain it for malign purposes. Vietnamese netizens appear to be consumed by worries about the danger from nefarious individuals online, which may include peers and work colleagues. In fact, respondents indicated much greater concern about the threat posed by individuals (e.g.

hackers, thieves, malicious peers) than from other entities (e.g. the government, corporations, third-party marketers). Again, this result would appear to flip current privacy concerns in most Western nations on their head. The onus of responsibility for securing personal information was widely perceived as being on the user, rather than on the ISP, the website owner, the government, or any other entity. Privacy policies were dismissed as altogether without relevance to ordinary Internet users either outright lies, meaningless boilerplate, or intended to secure the website owners information rather than the users. Vietnams few legal regulations were deemed similarly without value, believed to exist only for the benefit of powerful Vietnamese government and corporate interests and influential private individuals. Finally, of the 84 total respondents in the three focus groups and the online interactive platform, only two referred to privacy as a right. 6. Conclusions The observed results reveal an interesting paradox regarding privacy values in Vietnam as they relate to Hofstedes five dimensions. With a high Long-Term Orientation (LTO) score of 80, Vietnam may be expected to cultivate a culture of relative comfort with sharing personal information for the sake of group orientation, respect for hierarchy, the concept of face, avoidance of conflict and confrontation, the importance of relationships, and the need for harmony. Yet the results seem to show just the opposite: not only were respondents not comfortable sharing much of their personal information with other individuals, they were fiercely protective of it. Similarly, Vietnams relatively low UAI score (30) suggests similarly low concern for information privacy, but such was not found to be the case at least regarding individuals, as contrasted with groups. A low Individualism (IDV) dimension, as in Vietnam (20), should mean that individuals would exhibit markedly lower levels of concern for privacy. Yet, again, Vietnamese respondents were highly protective of online personal privacy from other individuals. Vietnams Masculinity (MAS) score of 40 indicates that individuals there tend to place significant emphasis on material success, and that the economic benefits of using private information should tend to outweigh the benefits of privacy control. Yet controlling against the misuse of personal data online was widely viewed as critical. Only in the case of Power Distance do the observed results fall along predicted lines. Vietnam has a high Power Distance score of 70. Individuals in high PDI countries are expected to exhibit higher levels of privacy concerns. Insofar as personal information security is concerned, in this regard the observed results did meet expectations. Yet the respondents relative comfort with institutional scrutiny tells a more complex and nuanced tale than is revealed by attitudes toward sharing of information with other individuals. That is, if we consider only attitudes toward group and organizational surveillance, then privacy attitudes would seem to track much more closely with those predicted. In other words, depending upon the conception of privacy we utilize weighted toward individuals or groups,

scrutiny or appropriation the observed results either fit many of those predicted by Hofstedes model or they fail them almost entirely. These results clearly indicate that further research is needed regarding the relationship of Hofstedes dimensions of national culture to the complex characterizations of privacy across national and cultural borders. Westin and many other scholars and theorists speak of privacy as a right, yet this study suggests that Vietnamese netizens may view privacy not as a right that is, as a fundamental individual entitlement but rather as a normative behavior, a socially prescribed manner of preventive action like locking ones door or brushing ones teeth, more responsibility than right. It is not their privacy per se that Vietnamese respondents seem to feel is threatened on the Internet; it is their wallets and their social capital. This all suggests that Vietnamese conceptions of privacy may have more in common with notions of mere personal information and data security than with traditional Western ideals rooted in identity formation and personal autonomy. Indeed, although Rachaels has observed that the unique interest protected by privacy is our ability to limit other peoples observation of us or access to information about us even if we have certain knowledge that the observation or information would not be used to our detriment or used at all 89 [italics mine], concerns about the potential for misuse of information would seem to characterize Vietnamese conceptions of privacy almost in full. Regarding Laudons formulation, that online privacy is the claim of individuals to be left alone, free from surveillance or interference from other individuals or organizations including the state,90 the Vietnamese expression of online privacy may best be understood as a curtailed, modified version of that definition: Privacy in Vietnam is the responsibility of individuals to keep themselves free from malign interference from other individuals. Vietnams unique history and culture may shed further light on these findings. Vietnam has only recently initiated free-market economic reforms which include private ownership, the accumulation of capital, market competition, and wage labor. From 1954 until the Chinese-style economic reforms of doi moi in 1989, Vietnam was among the poorest countries in the world, a closed communist state in which the government oversaw the production and distribution of all goods and services, and economic activity of any kind was proscribed. Today, tens of millions of Vietnamese entrepreneurs are seeking to make up for lost time by engaging in a kind of turbocharged capitalism in which capital, and the means of acquiring it, have become a single-minded obsession for Vietnamese people. Ironically, it sometimes seems as if every aspect of modern individual life in Vietnam has come to be ruled by this obsession, where money is not only a means of providing for oneself and ones family, it is an end in itself: establishing status in a hierarchy-gripped culture and providing a safety net in a society in which less than 20% of the population has a bank account and the notion of insurance is viewed with deep scepticism. Vietnam has very little established civil society, and, as in many developing nations, the government and private industry are awash in institutionalized corruption. At the same time, state resources for enforcing laws, policing the online environment, and prosecuting malefactors are only a fraction of what is warranted by the amount of activity on the Internet.

As a result, criminal and illegitimate activity, online and off, is rampant, and citizens are commensurately more sensitive to the possibility of becoming a victim of such activity than in other developed countries with tighter oversight and regulatory controls. As has been noted, Confucian-oriented societies such as Vietnam tend to be characterized by strong hierarchical systems, with the government and its officials at the very top, and individual citizens at the bottom. An individuals placement in the vast territory between those two poles depends on many factors, but in general terms, the more influence an individual has, the more power (and, usually, wealth) he has. This is not much different from many capitalist societies, but there is a significant difference in Vietnam: the more power one has in society, the more rights one is also perceived to have. (This relationship is precisely what is represented by Hofstedes Power Distance dimension). It is therefore a common belief among Vietnamese that ordinary individuals are, by default, powerless, disenfranchised, and outside the system. Laws and other regulatory systems that might appear to exist for the benefit of every citizen are in fact available only to those influential persons who can manipulate the system to their benefit. Considered through this lens, it is unsurprising that respondents (among whom there were no government officials, no celebrities, no oil titans or media moguls) typically felt that privacy-related laws and policies existed only for the benefit of a select elite, as inaccessible to ordinary Vietnamese as a Lexus or a fashion model girlfriend. The Vietnamese worldview also places the government in a paternalistic position in society, very much like a parent who must be trusted to take care of its children, the citizens. While personal liberty and autonomy are very important to American and European Internet users, Vietnamese users are much more tolerant of, even receptive to, greater intrusion and scrutiny by the government and corporate entities into their personal lives and affairs online. As Hofstede has noted, cultural dimensions such as collectivism and power distance can affect the standards of privacy rights. The notion of online surveillance or intrusion by the government, or even by online businesses and other organizations, may not be considered a violation of privacy because, for Vietnamese, such actions are to be expected and even sanctioned in the name of collectivism, citizenship, Confucian values, and national economic development.

Notes
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