As of yesterday, the 17th of July, the ISC (Internet Society of China) has officially set the basis for an antispam text message alliance. The 574 million mobile phone users from the country have more than welcomed the initiative, considering the fact that China is plagued by more than 350 billion text spam messages per year.

According to Hu Qiheng, chairman of the ISC, addressing the issue has become a necessity, and the problem is expected to be dealt with completely with the aid of the recently adopted system and legal foundation. China Mobile, China Unicom, and 32 other companies have decided to adopt the self discipline act put together by the ISC.

In 2007, the level of text message spam has increased by 92.7%, reaching a total value of 353.8 billion. It goes without saying that the Chinese people were more than upset. Proof of that are the 438,668 complaints that were registered by the end of last month with the 12321 Informant Center.

What were these spam messages about? According to an analysis, they could be split up into several categories: deceptive (39.17%), commercial ads (36.28%), illegal sales of notes and certificates (11.45%), prohibited product sales (8.37%).

The MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) has already come up with a security software solution that will protect mobile phones from spam. This software is capable of filtering and screening messages, so that only legitimate ones reach the phone user. The concept is fairly simple and very much resembles the security solutions used on PCs.

There are two reasons why spammers have decided to target mobile phones: first of all, in China, the number of people who own a mobile telephone is far greater than those who own a PC; secondly, it is simpler and more cost-effective to spam mobile phones as opposed to PCs.

Australia has recently experienced a similar situation, when phone users were informed by a spam text message that a hitman had been hired to kill them.