Court ruling sends message to text spamming businesses

On Thursday, the Pudong New Area People's Court ordered the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to pay a client, Liu Chunquan, 1,000 yuan ($160) in compensation for repeatedly sending him spam text messages, the Laodong Daily reported.

Liu accused ICBC of sending him unwanted text messages after he applied for a credit card from the bank in June 2011, according to the report. The texts, which were advertisements for cars and discounted travel packages, were sent from 95588, the bank's customer service line.

Liu did not like receiving the texts, so he called the bank several times to ask them to stop sending them. But the texts kept coming.

In July, Liu filed a lawsuit against the bank to force it to stop sending the texts. He demanded 61,000 yuan in compensation. The bank then stopped sending him the texts.

In court, Liu quoted the seventh article of the Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on Strengthening Information Protection on Networks, which forbids organizations from sending advertisements to people's mobile phones when they haven't given their consent or when they have already clearly refused the service. Liu argued that ICBC continued to send him advertisements despite his clear refusal, which violated the law.

In its defense, ICBC argued that Liu gave his consent to receive text messages related to the credit card when he applied for it. The bank asserted that it never sent him messages irrelevant to the credit card.

The court sided with Liu based on a limited interpretation of the phrase "messages related to the card." It determined that the phrase should only refer to messages related to activity on a client's account, such as purchase notifications or changes to the balance. Thus, the court ruled that advertisements don't count.

Local media reported that it was the first time in China that a bank was punished for sending advertisement texts to a client.

Unwanted text messages are a common problem in China. The 12321 Internet Obscene and Trash Information Reporting Center established by the Internet Society of China received 23,623 complaints about spam text messages in November.

These spam messages included commercial text messages and advertisements sent to mobile phone users without their consent.

The center's research shows that in the first half of 2014, mobile phone users receive 12 spam text messages on average each week.

That amounts to hundreds of spam texts each year. And 27.7 percent of users could not unsubscribe or did not know how to unsubscribe from the messages.

It is common that businesses obtain the phone numbers of customers to offer the service.

Sending unwanted advertisements to customers is a nuisance. Businesses that do so should be punished.

Banks and other businesses should ask for the customers' consent before sending them advertisements. If the request is stated in a service agreement, it should be clearly stated in a place where a customer will see it.

Also, there should be a clear distinction between advertising messages and service messages, so that companies cannot take advantage of customers' consent to send them promotions or advertisements.

Moreover, in the messages sent to customers, there should be clear instructions on how to unsubscribe from the messages.