BEIJING, March 16 -- Profit-mad branch companies of China's largest mobile phone operator, China Mobile, have sent a huge number of junk commercial ads to their subscribers, swamping them with the useless or even illegal messages.

    An evening special program on China's central television, CCTV, revealed the shadowy practices employed by the telecom companies based in eastern China's Shandong province, on Sunday, for World Consumer Rights Day.

    The TV program showed employees of a branch company claiming they could send 150,000 junk messages in 10 minutes. The mobile operators automatically send messages to subscribers within the radius of a base station as long as their phones are turned on.

    Ironically, they have a list of the phone numbers of local government officials who will be spared the junk messages, in an apparent effort to avoid landing themselves in trouble.

    The TV program quoted a manager of the regional telecom company named Mr. Li as saying that their employees' incomes are linked with the number of junk messages they sent out to subscribers. The bosses set specific sums of money each employee must earn through sending junk messages.

    More surprisingly, the companies even send illegal messages to their clients, for example ads promoting falsified value-added tax invoices. And they could monitor their subscribers' mobile phone numbers to track their whereabouts and the conditions of their subscription, so as to better target them with the junk.

    According to the CCTV report, China Mobile branches in Qingdao, Dezhou and Rizhao of Shandong Province have all sent junk messages to subscribers for profits while a manager with the branch in the provincial capital Jinan is vague about their operation.

    Following the CCTV report on Sunday evening, China Mobile has ordered its Shandong Branch to fully investigate the illegal practices of its local branches, according to sina.com.

    Before the shadowy practice was revealed by CCTV, China Mobile has all along pledged to fight junk messages.

    Last Friday, it released a free anti-spam text message software for filtering the rampant junk messages. Cell phone users can download Text Message Manager, which can block junk messages and report the sources to the authorities, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

    Junk messages have long been a headache for the country's 649 million mobile phone users, who rely on text messages as an important means of communication.

    Figures from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed that cell phone users in China received 10 spam text messages each week as of the end of 2008, and the figure was 13 in 2007.

    Junk messages are designed to trick people into giving out their financial information or remit money. It also includes advertisements and information on illegal selling of vehicles, weapons or fake diplomas, the report said.

(Source: Cri.cn)