Tough penalties needed to give anti-spam law teeth, papers say

An estimated 200 billion unwanted messages were sent to mobile phones on the mainland in the first half of last year. According to computer security company Kaspersky Lab, China accounts for 22 per cent of all electronic spam sent globally.

A draft amendment of the mainland's advertisement law that would ban electronic spamming was therefore warmly welcomed this past week. Doubts remain, however, about how effective legislative changes would be given the difficulties that would inevitably arise in enforcing the law.

According to the amendment, released to solicit public opinion a week ago, the sending of advertisements by any organisation or individual through e-mail or text message "when the receiver has not agreed or made a request, or when the receiver has clearly refused", would be prohibited.

Media outlets said that without rules outlining strict and workable punishments, the law would lack teeth. Some added that there had been much crying but very little done in recent years to combat the problem.

The amendment says those who breach the law should be punished according to related regulations on the telecommunications industry. The Beijing News said this in effect downgraded the law to an industrial-relations issue. It warned that watchdogs for the telecoms sector did not have the staff to implement punishments in spamming cases.

"It is necessary that the advertisement law gives those bothered by spam the right to directly sue the advertisers," the newspaper said. It suggested setting a minimum amount for compensation, or introducing punitive damages to deter advertisers.

The existing regulations, issued by the former Information Industry Ministry in 2006, only target spam e-mails. There are no specific regulations on text messages and telephone advertising.