Chinese Government Cracking Down On Spam

What's the Chinese government's definition of spam? According to the State Council's Office for Rectifying Malpractice, it's a "wrongdoing?which is profit-seeking in defiance of public interests," for the Nasdaq-traded Chinese ad network Focus Media Holding (NSDQ: FMCN), its "just some ads." The two have collided spectacularly in a case the Chinese press is calling "Text Message-Gate", which has resulted in the Chinese government saying it will investigate those unfortunate Chinese advertising firms who thought blasting some 200 million mobile phone users of China Mobile and China Unicom with a tidal wave of unwanted text ads was no big deal.

Meanwhile, talk about shooting yourself in the foot. The scandal only broke after a general manager at Focus Media Holding revealed in a television interview on March 15--which just happened to coincide with World Consumer Rights Day--that the company had the details of more than 200 million cell phone users in China?a whopping half of the country's mobile phone users?and was regularly spamming them with millions of unwanted ads. Focus Media chairman Jason Jiang Nanchun was forced to apologize last week, but they clearly didn't get what was so wrong about the spam, and still don't. As a company spokesperson told AP, it was "just some ads," and "nothing pornographic."

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