Oversight must be beefed up to curb spam SMS

MANY SMARTPHONE USERS complain about receiving unwanted messages and that even after they send orders back to block such junk messages as instructed, the junk messages continue. Legal Daily comments:

A woman in Chengdu, Southwest China’s Sichuan province, complained that she received junk messages after buying coffee from an automatic dispensing machine. The message said she could reply “T” to block more messages in the future, but when she replied “T”, she received even more junk messages.

That’s a common problem for many smartphone users. According to reports, the telecom companies require commercial message senders to include a way for the recipients to block future messages in their content, so SMS spam senders include such statements.

However, telecom companies do not check whether the blocking is effective. As a result, many junk message senders include false information to cheat users.

Data show that the number of junk messages Chinese users received in 2017 was slightly less than 10 billion. Some telecom defenders praise this by saying the number is lower than the 70 billion in 2012, when such messages were at their peak, but the fact is 10 billion is still a very big number and shows the rights of smartphone users are still being violated.

In order to counter this, it is time the telecom supervisory departments did their job by punishing the illegal junk message senders according to the law.

Besides, some media reports say telecom companies have profited from the sending of junk messages because the illegal senders must pay telecom companies to send junk messages on such a scale. Only by cutting the profit chain can the rights of smartphone users be protected.

Some “experts” also advise smartphone users to install applications to block junk messages. That confuses the right with the duty. Smartphone users have the right not to be disturbed, and it is not their duty to install such applications.