(ECNS) -- Three quarters of apps reported to an Internet anti-spam watchdog were found to contain pornographic content, according to a study of China's mobile Internet development and safety.
Jointly released by the Internet Society of China and National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China, it said anti-spam center and hotline 12321.com received 727,976 reports about questionable apps in 2015, among which 200,684 turned out to be valid.
More than 74 percent of the reported apps were in the category of entertainment and gaming, followed by ones related to lifestyle (10 percent), systems (8.3 percent) and social networking (5.5 percent).
A further study of reported apps found that main problems concerned the secret running of software and wasting of data as well as malicious advertising installed on a user's cell phone.
Apps for Android smartphones pose a serious threat to users, according to the report.
It also said 75 percent of the reported apps, especially those for social networking purposes, were found to have pornographic information, including texts, pictures and videos. The anti-spam center shut down 235 apps in 2015.
Ten percent of reported apps were able to manipulate the user's phone number when outgoing calls were made, which is thought to facilitate wire fraud, it was added. A total of 34 apps were withdrawn from stores for having had phone number manipulation functions.
