Posted by Virus Bulletin on Mar 1, 2006
China toughens up its anti-spam regulations
The Chinese Government has introduced a set of regulations aimed at reducing the amount of spam circulating in the country. The sending of advertising emails without the recipient's prior permission is now banned, and all advertising emails are required to be labelled as such.
Spammers will now face penalties of up to 30,000 yuan (US$3,750), and an offence-reporting centre (www.anti-spam.cn) has been launched, at which users can register their complaints about being spammed.
According to the country's Ministry of Information Industry (MII), approximately 60 per cent of the 50 billion emails sent and received in China last year were spam. Furthermore, the hitherto slack regulation of junk mail in the country has attracted spammers from across the globe to use servers based in China to send out their spam.
According to statistics reported by both Sophos and CommTouch, China currently has the dubious honour of being the second-largest spam-producing country in the world (being 'out-spammed' only by the United States) - it is hoped that the new regulations will go some way towards reducing the problem.
Posted on 01 March 2006 by Virus Bulletin
