Just days after news about a VND33 billion (US$1.55 million) sale of the popular website haivl.com emerged, authorities decided last Friday to shut the site down over serious violations of electronic information regulations.

Hoang Vinh Bao, head of the Bureau of Broadcasting and Electronic Information at the Ministry of Information and Communications, last Friday signed a decision withdrawing the social networking license for haivl.com from APPVL Vietnam Technology Company.

The site is no longer accessible.

The bureau also fined APPVL Vietnam VND205 million as the site was found to carry and exchange distorted information about history and national heroes, advertise an online game whose content was not yet approved, and provide chess games without prior permission.

APPVL Vietnam must pay the fine within 10 days.

Just several days prior to the closure of the site, rumors had it that haivl.com had been sold to 24h Online Advertising Company for VND33 billion. Even though both sides declined to comment, experts confirmed a transaction between them had been done.

At an investment conference last week, Truong Gia Binh, chairman of FPT Group and president of the Vietnam Software and IT Services Association, described the transaction of the site haivl.com owned by Vo Thanh Quang, 25, a former student of FPT University, as a good one.

It is also an indication that young Vietnamese known how to do business on the Internet and in the digital era.

According to experts, haivl.com, still fresh as a new market entrant, is a favorite site of young people with over 37 million pageviews. Its annual advertising revenues amounted to VND9 billion. Its fanpage attracted over 4.4 million likes on Facebook and had nearly 16,000 followers on Twitter.

SGT/VNN