Experts suggest cracking down on increasing junk messages

Experts have called for measures to address the growing number of junk messages angering China's mobile phone users. While mobile phones have made life easier for many, China's mobile phone users, over 1.1 billion according to official data, have increasingly suffered from disturbance by junk messages. A recent report by a rumor-refuting platform said more than 200 billion junk messages disturbed Chinese mobile users in the first half of 2013. About 59 percent of those junk messages were advertisements, while scam messages, which accounted for only 1.5 percent of the total junk messages, led to over 30 million yuan in losses. Tencent, a major IT corporation and developer of online instant messaging service QQ, said a total of 356 million junk SMS messages were reported by its mobile app users in the first half of 2013, 50 million more than in 2012. The increasing junk messages have become a social problem in China. Experts suggested that the issue be addressed through technical, administrative and legal means. Zhu Wenjun, an official from the telecommunications administration of Beijing, said it is difficult to investigate and crack down on junk messages, as senders use illegal base stations to send messages instead of using telecom operators' networks. In addition, many junk message senders add interference characters in messages and send them through low frequencies so as to avoid monitoring by operators and regulators. The current methods of tackling junk messages include the report-and-handle mechanisms of the country's three mobile operators -- China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom -- and spam-fighting mobile phone apps developed by IT companies. Zhou Hanhua, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said China should learn from other countries' practices to establish a blacklist system to refuse messages from numbers on the list. Zhou said the technology is already available in China. Zhu Jun, an official from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said the issue of junk messages has troubled regulation bodies for a long time, however, it has not been addressed due to the difficulty of implementing some regulations. Experts found that operators, senders and brokers selling personal information can all benefit from junk messages, which is one reason why they are popular and growing in China. In the meantime, telecommunications regulators at the central and provincial levels have limited manpower and awareness of the issue, said Zhou. Zhu Jun said the ministry will ask telecom operators to launch a special campaign cracking down on junk messages and to expose illegal practitioners to the public. Experts believe that legislation should be improved to address the issue. Zhou Hanhua said although the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, passed a decision for enhanced protection of online information, there are still no supporting laws and regulations to implement the decision. It is difficult to obtain evidence for junk message cases, and the cost of lawsuits is high. The lawsuits would be difficult to win and compensation would be limited. Experts said that major developed countries have special laws addressing the issue, and China should accelerate steps to enact laws against junk messages. Moreover, personal information should be protected with clear laws, experts suggested.