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The Internet contributes to nine percent of Vietnams gross domestic product (GDP), and 1.6 percent to its GDP growth of 14.4 percent, according to recent global survey.

The contribution is driven by private consumption of Internet-related goods such as broadband and mobile Internet spending, the ICTNews news website said Wednesday, citing a survey done by the US-based McKinsey & Company, Inc.

Theprivate consumption accounts for some 2 percent of Vietnams GDP but it is offset by the countrys large trade deficit in Internet-related goods and services, according to the survey report,Online and upcoming: The Internet's impact on aspiring countries. Results of the survey were announced at a seminar in Hanoi Wednesday.

It pointed out that the GDP contribution of the Internet in Vietnam is still lower than the two percent average for the nine aspiring countries that the company studied in detail.

However, Shaowei Ying, associate principal in McKinseys Singapore office, told the seminar, organized by the Vietnam Club of Information Technology Journalists, that the contribution will soon catch up with the average rate and be probably able to reach 2.5 percent in the future.

On the other hand, McKinseys survey found that e-commerce in Vietnam is still an untapped market with high potential for growth.

It said more than one-third of Internet users have visited an online shopping or auction site. Meanwhile, in another survey, 50 percent of Internet users said they believed that shopping online provides access to a wider variety of products, it added.

But concerns about payment security constrain e-commerce growth potential in Vietnam, according to the survey, saying that just 13 percent of Vietnamese Internet users believe that buying products online is safe.

Moreover, Vietnams foundations for e-commerce activity are low in comparison with more developed countries and regional averages, due to low online payment enablement, McKinsey said in the survey.

According to the survey, Internet users in Vietnam now account for 31 percent of the population which is low compared to neighboring aspiring countries like Malaysia, where the rate is 55 percent, and Taiwan with 72 percent.

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Internet contributes to 9 pct of Vietnam GDP: survey

Subscriber figures and other data from selected Internet service providers:

April 19: Verizon Communications Inc. added 193,000 FiOS Internet customers in the first three months of the year to end the quarter with 5 million. The company says it will stop selling DSL Internet service in areas where FiOS is available. DSL is slightly cheaper than FiOS Internet service, but much slower.

Tuesday: AT&T Inc. says it added 718,000 subscribers to its U-verse high-speed Internet service in the first quarter to reach 5.9 million. The company says those gains more than offset losses from DSL. AT&T added a net 103,000 landline broadband customers after factoring in the DSL losses.

Thursday: Time Warner Cable Inc. says it added 792,000 high-speed data subscribers to end with 11.1 million. Most of the gains came from the acquisition of Insight Communications, a cable TV company with customers in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.

Coming up:

Wednesday: Comcast Corp.

Thursday: Cablevision Systems Corp.

May 7: Frontier Communications Corp.

May 8: Charter Communications Inc.

May 9: CenturyLink Inc.. AOL Inc.

The rest is here:
Subscriber data from Internet service providers

Amy Sly, courtesy of BuzzFeed

By Jack Shepherd

BuzzFeed FWD

The joke that you tell about how the Internet is a waste of time if you are the kind of person who makes jokes about how the Internet is a waste of time is always something like, "The only thing the Internet is good for is cat videos and pornography." And I don't think it is being pedantic to point out that this particular line doesn't work if you substitute "dog videos." People would think you are weird. They would be like, "Why are you watching dog videos?" "Dog videos isn't a thing," they would say. But so and I will try to look at some actual statistics as we get more into it but this brings me to my first tentative answer to the "Cats On The Internet" question (which, I should also point out, is aquestionthatpeopleaskalot.)

1. It's the culture Through various lucky accidents, cat stuff started to permeate Internet culture pretty early on, and dogs often found themselves imitating rather than innovating in the field.Cheezburger.com(and yes, sure, 4chan, etc., but let's try to stay focused) certainly has an important role to play in this story, with the introduction to the wider Web of those semi-literate feline sensations the LOLcats, who at this point even your mom has heard of. And whileHappy Cat of whom your mom is also, arguably, at least tangentially aware is still the most popular image on Cheezburger, according to the site's Editor in Chief, Emily Huh, the most popular post on sister (dog-themed) siteI Has A Hot Doghas nowhere near the same traction, either in terms of Facebook shares or in the annals of Internet culture as a whole.

Cheezburger's top 5 all-time cat posts

I Can Haz Cheezburger courtesy of Buzzfeed

See them on Cheezburgerhere,here,here,here, andhere.

Cheezburger's top 5 all-time dog posts

I Can Haz Cheezburger courtesy of BuzzFeed

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Why are cats better than dogs (according to the Internet)?

23-04-2012 08:59 Barely six months into the launch of technology giant Samsung's corporate social responsibility initiative, the solar-powered Internet school, it has won the African Solar Project of the Year award, at the Africa Energy Awards, on March 28.

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Solar Internet project earns immediate recognition - Video

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration took aim Monday at what it called "digital guns for hire," unveiling new sanctions against Syria and Iran for using the Internet, social media and other technology to track and target dissidents.

The governments of those countries and some telecommunications companies working with them have used technology to "facilitate grave human rights abuses," the administration said.

"These technologies should be in place to empower citizens, not to repress them," President Obama said in announcing the sanctions at a speech at theU.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

In its international cyberspace strategy released last year, administration officials said they "encourage people all over the world to use digital media ... and denounce those who harass, unfairly arrest, threaten, or commit violent acts against the people who use these technologies."

The Internet and social media played a pivotal role in the pro-democracy uprisings of last year's Arab Spring, which led to the toppling of repressive regimes in Egypt, Libya and other countries.

The administration said the Syrian government had directed Syriatel, a privately owned telecommunications company that controls 55% of that nation's cellphone market, to cut off network access in areas where the government planned attacks on rebels. The company also recorded mobile phone calls on the government's behalf, the administration said.

Datak Telecom, an Internet service provider in Iran, collaborated with the government there to monitor, track and target people who tried to get around the regime's blocking of Internet content, the administration said.

Datak also assisted in surveillance of Iranians who used a popular commercial email service, and planned to expand the operation to potentially include millions of Iranian Internet users, according to the White House.

The administration targeted those companies, along with Syrian and Iranian government agencies and people who directed the surveillance operations, for financial sanctions and bans on U.S. visas. One person specifically named was Ali Mamluk, who the administration said oversaw a communications program by the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate that was directed at opposition groups.

Mamluk worked with Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security to provide the Syrian government with training in the use of Internet monitoring technology, the administration said. He also requested Iran's help with monitoring social networks, it said.

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U.S. hits Syria, Iran with sanctions for Internet, tech abuses