Text Spam in China: You Can Get Rid of It, But You Might Have to Sue Someone

via 86callchina.com

Anyone who uses a mobile phone in China is familiar with the phenomenon of spam texts, and the longer you use one number, the more of them will start pouring in. At best, these messages are unwanted ads, and sometimes they’re actually tricks; some messages, for example, will claim to be from your bank in an attempt to trick you into giving away some money.

Chinese telecom providers have always played innocent, saying that there’s nothing they can do about the messages. But it turns out they can stop you from getting spam texts by putting your number on a so-called “red list”. The bad news? You might have to sue them in court to get on the list.

According to a Beijing News story, a few mobile users, like Mr. Yang in Guangdong, just couldn’t take it anymore and sued telecom providers like China Telecom, claiming that the mountain of trashy texts were disrupting their day-to-day life.

In Yang’s case, a lawyer for the company announced that as soon as they had received the court’s subpoena, they put Yang’s account on a “red list” that ensures he won’t get any more spam texts. In a move that’s sure to enrage netizens nationwide, who are already frustrated with the special treatment often granted to government officials here, the lawyer also noted that “almost all of the people on the red list are provincial-level and city-level [government] officials, so you can see from this treatment [we’re offering Yang] how sincere we are [about resolving the issue].”

His statement was an attempt to ease the path towards an out-of-court settlement, but it blew up in his face when mobile users caught wind of it and realized that there actually was a way for them to avoid spam texts, and that mobile carriers had been lying about ‘not being able to do anything’ about the problem while secretly fixing it for Party officials and other VIP customers.

Since then, China Telecom and other carriers have been playing dumb, refusing to comment or having spokesmen suggest they’re “not clear on” the details, having just learned about the red list from the news media. But an anonymous “industry insider and expert” in the Beijing News piece is quoted as saying:

In the industry there have always been rumors of this [list], that it’s for Party officials, major public figures and other special users, there are special services for them so that they don’t get spam texts or disrupting phone calls.

The same insider said he or she had never seen proof of the existence of a “red list”, but given that it was announced by one of China Telecom’s lawyers, the cat may now be out of the bag. The good news for telecom providers is that it doesn’t seem to have exploded yet, but this carries all the markings of a public relations ticking time-bomb. A problem that everyone in China experiences (spam texts), a clear “enemy” (lying telecom providers), evidence of special treatment for more ‘important’ people…

…yeah, this could end badly.

[Beijing News via Sina Tech]