Restrictions Hit Internet Café Owners

YANGOON: -- A long list of regulations issued to Internet café owners in Burma is making it more difficult than ever for them to operate.

The list of about 20 different instructions issued to Internet café owners and obtained by The Irrawaddy aims to keep a close watch on Internet users and restrict their access to all but officially-sanctioned sites.

Users are warned not to attempt to visit politically-affiliated sites and to use only email addresses issued by the state-run Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications. Internet cafés are required to submit every two weeks the personal details of their customers, records of their Internet use and random photo shots of computer screens.

Café owners and their customers are prohibited from downloading web sites and resources and from using external storage devices such as floppy disks, compact disks and flash drives.

An employee at an Internet café in Rangoon told The Irrawaddy that the regulations, combined with restrictions introduced last year, made life very difficult for café owners.

“We cannot follow all of the rules because some users are skilled at accessing banned websites,” he said. “It is also impossible for us to watching Internet users all the time.”

One user said Internet café owners who applied the regulations risked losing customers. “If the shop sticks to the rules, the customers will turn away,” he said.

One hour of Internet use at a Rangoon outlet costs 700 kyat (US $0.5) to 1,000 kyat ($0.7 cent). During power cuts an additional 1,500 kyat ($1.1) per hour is charged to cover the cost of generator use.

Burma has only two Internet service providers—the Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications and Bagan Cybertech, which was owned by a son of ousted prime minister and intelligence chief Gen Khin Nyunt until he was purged in 2004.

-- .irrawaddy.org 2007-02-21

Maybe they should put "At least we're not Burma" on the Thai coat of arms.