In cooperation with the State Council Information Office and the Ministry of Public Security, China's new Ministry of Information Industry has made an SMS Management Rule which is expected to provide oversight on short message services and the related management issues and will be unveiled in a few weeks.

MII says it will issue relevant technical standards for users to manage mobile spam messages and to encourage mobile communications service operators to take new measures to restrict spam messages. China Unicom has already launched value-added services in Sichuan and Shanghai for users to set a blacklist and whitelist of message senders.

MII's statistics show mobile phone SMS has become a main means of communication for Chinese users because of its great convenience and cheap price, and during this past Spring Festival alone, Chinese users sent a total of 17 billion short messages.

However, spam messages have seriously disturbed users' daily life. MII has taken a series of measures to restrict spam message, including issuing regulations for the operators to strengthen their management of the information service. A representative from MII says that MII will further strengthen its management by asking mobile communications companies and service providers to fulfill their social responsibilities and work with the concerned government departments to fight spam messages.