First compensation payout for spam SMS

China's first lawsuit for sending unsolicited mobile phone text messages was filed against Jiangsu Unicom (JU), one of China's three largest telecommunications companies. The lawsuit ended with the Baixia District People's Court ruling that JU compensate the plaintiff, Wang Jun, with Rmb5,000 (US$625).

Wang accused JU of disturbing his life by bombarding him with SMSs on his mobile phone. Between May 19 2006 and June 26 2006 he received 39 messages, sometimes as late as 10pm, and Wang was forced to look at them repeatedly because his mobile phone was unable to delete a message without opening it first.

The messages Wang received said he had the chance to win a prize from JU provided he replied 'U' to join the game, or '0000' to decline. Either reply would have cost Wang Rmb0.10, according to China Daily. Wang said he did not respond with '0000', fearing he would be barraged with further messages, and both called JU's customer service hotline and visited JU's office to request that the messaging be stopped. Wang said that it was unfair that he would be obliged to pay the money to stop the messaging, albeit a nominal sum, for something that was imposed on him.