 Anchor:
The Chinese government is coming down hard on spammers. Founded in April, the 12321 Anti-Spam Center that falls under China's Industry and Information Technology Center released a progress report. Our reporter XYee has details on how government departments handle spam messages.
Reporter:
During the last six months, more than 900 thousand cases of spam text messages were reported to the 12321 center. The messages were sent in two ways, through phone-to-phone text messages, and through multiple text messaging systems developed by different service providers.
Li Hong, an official with the Anti-Spam Center, says they gather spammers' mobile phone numbers on their official website.
"As for phone numbers that have been frequently reported, we post them on our website, and send them messages reminding them to stop their activities."
Since April, the Anti-Spam Center has sent reminders to nearly 700,000 mobile users that have been reported for sending spam. Among them, 660,000 have never been reported again. The other 20,000 who continued spamming were barred from sending text messages.
The center also sent reminders to frequently reported service providers, 18 of which were later suspended from operations because they continued their practices despite the warnings.
12321 says that people can report spam through text messages, e-mail and specially set-up hotlines.
Although many people are annoyed by spam messages, many companies are happy to advertise their services through multiple text messaging services because it is cheap and convenient.
Workers at the Shanghai Xi'ao Telecommunications Company, a service provider, said they didn't check the content of their clients' text messages.
"We do not have time to check our clients or their text messages. We just do our job as long as our clients pay for it."
Thus spamming worsened despite the government's efforts to deal with the problem. Complicating the issue is the fact that there are no laws in China forbidding spam.
Li Hong says government departments are working to propose relevant regulations.
"China's Industry and Information Technology Ministry, the Public Security Ministry and the State Council Information Office have jointly drawn a management regulation for text messages, which will soon be made public."
Those who send spam messages with false information or rumours will be investigated and tried in accordance with the country's criminal laws.
XYee,CRI News.
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