Spam laws are like an Air Supply LP: everyone’s got one, but no one wants to admit it.
Unless, of course, you’re a small handful of countries like Australia, the UK, and the US, and then you’re dancing on a table belting out the soulful lyrics to “All Out of Love.” (mental note: Air Supply’s from Australia; that’s odd. Could there be a connection?) The three aforementioned countries, of course, have been the Clint Eastwood of anti-spam advocates, taking down anyone who dares violate their space, and taking them down in style. And if you think that similes likening spam to Air Supply and Clint Eastwood in the same breath are one of the strangest things you’ve ever heard, you’re not alone.
But what happens when the world’s largest producer of spam has its own spam laws? And I’m not talking about the US, because some recent reports suggest the country isn’t actually a major spam producer, but a conduit for spam coming from elsewhere. China accounts for about 22% of all the spam email sent each year and is the de facto spam producer, but would it surprise you to know that they’ve had anti-spam laws in place since 2006? And did you know that spammers, if caught risk being put to death?
Well, you have to deal with spammers somehow…
But, as we’ve seen – frustratingly – with Canada, having a law does not mean actually imposing a law. And now that we’re in 2014, there doesn’t seem to be much about China’s anti-spam law that looks like teeth, not even little mosquito teeth. According to the South China Morning Post, an estimated 200 billion spam text messages alone were sent in the first half of 2013 from China. And while the anti-spam law doesn’t appear to be in play much, last week the Chinese government “released [an amendment to the law] to solicit public opinion a week ago,” the Morning Post reports. According to the admendment, “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.”
Sounds good enough, but what does ‘prohibiting’ the activity really mean? Tough words, but again, like Canada, you can talk as tough as you want as long until the other guy points out that he’s holding a gun to your face and all you brought to the fight was a hockey stick. “Media outlets said that without rules outlining strict and workable punishments, the law would lack teeth,” says the Post. “Some added that there had been much crying but very little done in recent years to combat the problem.”
And that might be why we’re still seeing so much spam coming out of China instead of (ahem) spammers being put to death. “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.”
Perhaps it’s understandable that the Chinese government simply can’t find enough executioners, but what’s the real problem here? After all, we’re talking about a country that has absolutely no qualms whatsoever about dealing with Internet issues in unconventional ways.
“It is necessary that the advertisement law gives those bothered by spam the right to directly sue the advertisers,” the Beijing News said. “It suggested setting a minimum amount for compensation, or introducing punitive damages to deter advertisers.”
It’s important to note that the existing regulations, brought into law on March 30, 2006, only consider spam emails, and that there are “no specific regulations on text messages and telephone advertising.” And it’s also noteworthy that evidence suggests that China’s limited number of telecom companies have been complicit in the propagation of spam. “State television revealed in 2012 that many branches of China Telecom, one of the three state-run mobile-phone operators on the mainland, gave the green light to some advertisers in exchange for payment. This came four years after the company signed an self-enforced anti-spam pact with the other two state operators, China Unicom and China Mobile.”
According to the Xinhua Daily Telegraph, “the senders responsible for spam are a complex group.” On that, we cannot argue. But whether China can actually do something about its seemingly self-inflicted spam issue, there’s nothing to suggest that they’ll drop out of the top spot anytime soon.