In-depth
Unsolicited sex texts trouble mobile users
  • | Lao Dong, dtinews | November 27, 2012 11:54 AM

Millions of sex-related messages are sent to Vietnamese mobile users per day, raising public worry about their bad impacts on the youth.

Nguyen Duc Trung, of HCM City’s Binh Chanh District, said his mobile phones received several  such messages over the past two months, containing text such as “Please call this number to hear a sexy voice. Only for ages 18+”, “Presenting you a video which reveals a scene of a girl student undressing. Many others have complained about the same thing.

 

Millions of sex-related messages are sent to Vietnamese mobile users per day, raising public worry about their bad impacts on the youth. 

Mrs. Phan Thuy Tam, of HCM City’s Go Vap District, said that she was shocked when she checked her 9th grade son's phone, finding several explicit messages inviting him to download erotic clips.

Suspecting the son of soliciting these messages from friends, she questioned him and found out that they were spam. Initially, she did not believe him and started to ask parents of his friends. Many confirmed his story and were worried about the effect such messages might have on their children.

The problem is that WAP push messages show up with no phone number attached, just links.

Telecommunication experts said, upon opening a WAP push message money is taken directly from a user's account. Not only can opening them be costly, but they also have the potential to install harmful software.

Currently, software to prevent spam messages is available, but it is not effective against WAP push messages with links attached.

Nghiem Phu Hoan, Deputy Director of VNPT, said spam messages designed to cheat customers have become more of a problem.

Violators constantly try to change their way of disseminating these messages and have become very sophisticated, causing difficulties for management agencies. VNPT is now considering building a system to detect and prevent them, he added.

According to Nghiem Phu Hoan, the Ministry of Information and Communications should tighten control over spam messages and set up a mechanism that would allow different mobile service providers, along with the Ministry of Public Security, to cooperate in order to deal with the situation and punish those responsible.

The Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Information and Communications, Nguyen Van Hung, said spam messages is mostly a result of digital content service providers and lax management by mobile phone service operators.

Meanwhile, the laws pertaining to management remain weak and often overlap, leaving loopholes for violations.

Recently, the Government issued Decree 77/2012/ND-CP which stipulates that whenever advertisers and service providers send emails or text messages to recipients, they must also send a copy to the Ministry of Information and Communication's technical system.

Under the Government’s 83/2011/ND-CP, people who use telecom services for 'social evils' such as  violence, pornography, superstition, gambling, will be subjected to a fine of VND30-50 million (USD1,428-2,380).

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