China

.: Law and Regulation

On 20 February 2006 the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry (MII) of P. R. China adopted the “Regulations on Internet E-Mail Services”, which took effect on 30 March 2006.

The legislation aims to regulate Internet email services and to protect end-users.

According to the regulations, one should not send commercial emails without prior consent from the recipients, which means “opt-in” principle is adopted. Even having prior consent from the recipients, one should add the label “AD”, which is the abbreviation for “Advertisement”, in front of the subject line of a commercial email. The sender of commercial email should also provide valid contact information for the recipients to unsubscribe. It’s prohibited to get others’ email addresses by harvesting, sell or share harvested addresses. Breaches of the regulation will be punished by the MII. The MII can send a simple warning to the sender, or apply a fine. In addition, online fraudulent activities and misuse of computer resources, such as spreading viruses, are considered criminal violations according to other Chinese laws, and can be punished with more severe penalties, such as detention.

Differently from other national anti-spam laws, the Chinese regulation does not only regulate the sending of email messages, but also regulate the providing of email services. For example, email service providers are asked to strengthen the protection of their email servers to avoid their fraudulent utilization by spammers. Also, to make it easier to find the evidence of spamming, ESPs are asked to log the email related behavior of their users. ESPs are also asked to accept users’ complaint reporting. Users who received spam are also encouraged to report to the Spam Reporting Center run by Internet Society of China accredited by MII.

An article summarising the main elements of the Chinese anti-spam law was prepared by the Internet Society of China, and it is available in English and Chinese.

  Regulation of Internet Email Services (Chinese only)

.: Education, Awareness & Industry Initiatives

China is taking part to several spam-related activities at the international level:

  Working relationships are in place with some private and public bodies, international organizations and national government authorities. These include, for example, ITU, OECD, US FTC, KISA (Korea), DTI (UK), IIA and Spamhaus.

  ISC Signed a MOU of anti-spam with Internet Industry Association and four international companies including eBay, Microsoft, TimeWarner-AOL and Yahoo.

  ISC is part to the "Seoul-Melbourne Anti-Spam Agreement"

Education and awareness activities

(1) Organizing self-regulation

  ISC Anti-Spam self-regulation Standards for Internet Public E-mail Service.

  ISC Manual of Rejecting Spam (for users).

  ISC initiatives to close “Open Relays” and “Open Proxies”.

(2) Anti-spam meetings and seminars:

  ISC Anti-Spam Summit (2004) and International Anti-Spam forum (2004, 2005).

  ISC Anti-Spam survey.

(3) E-mail Server Administrator Training:

  ISC offers training to E-mail server administrators in order to improve their professional skills and knowledge.

(4) Black and White Lists System:

  A “Black List of spam-sending IP addresses” has been issued seven times since 2004, covering 1724 IP addresses.

  The ISC is establishing a clear and effective e-mail white list service platform. The platform is for the moment limited to a small group, but it will be extended to the entire industrial region in China within 2006.

.: Enforcement

WHO TO CONTACT:

Ministry of Information Industry(MII).

MII accredited Internet Society of China (ISC) to establish the Spam Reporting Center.

CONTACTS:

To report spam:

Spam Reporting Centre - (english)

Email: abuse(at)anti-spam.cn

Postal address: No13 , West Chang’an Street, Beijing, China.

Postcode:100804

Phone: +86-10-12321

Internet Society of China:

Mr HU Anting

Fax: +86-10-66418007

Latest update : 17th May 2006