SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), a major regulator, has called on e-commerce sites to curb SMS marketing ahead of the annual Singles Day Shopping Festival on Nov. 11.
MIIT, in a social media post Wednesday night, said it held an assembly on Oct. 25 with representatives of e-commerce Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, JD. com Inc, Meituan and Pinduoduo Inc.
He said he told corporations that his platform’s providers use loopholes to send SMS promotions to registered users without consent, in violation of customer rights. Unsolicited online content is commonly referred to as spam.
The regulator said it then asked corporations to “verify and correct” SMS marketing activities and the chorus of sending SMS promotions by obtaining the user’s consent.
Singles’ Day is the Chinese of American Cyber Monday. Upstream and same-day, e-commerce sites will offer limited-time discounts as promotional activity.
The MIIT assembly comes amid a year-long regulatory crusade in China, with the government applying restrictions and fines in sectors as varied as education and cryptocurrencies.
In April, the government fined Alibaba $2. 8 billion for anti-competitive behavior.
(Reporting via Josh Horwitz; Edited by Christopher Cushing)