Ad firms' huge, detailed lists stir privacy concern
By Li Qian |
April 13, 2012, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
ONE of the hundreds of Beijing ad companies sending spam text messages owns detailed personal data on 200 million people, triggering wide concern over violations of privacy, a report said.
In a bid to better target the audience and satisfy clients, the profitable advertising firms categorize mobile phone users by their financial statements, hobbies and consuming habits, then sell that data to advertisers.
The telecom operators were blamed for turning a blind eye to the practice because they raked in huge profits, China Economic Weekly said.
Because of the huge profits, the operators "were reluctant to filter the spam messages rather than they couldn't do so," an unnamed manager from China Mobile admitted to the magazine.
The operators offered bulk texting packages and charged 30,000 yuan (US$4,761) for sending 1 million messages. Despite the low price, they could earn tens of thousands of yuan from a deal, he said.
It was also a good price for the ad companies. They asked the clients to pay 50,000 yuan for 1 million advertising messages and thus gained the margin, Zhao Jian, a sales manager from an ad company revealed.
The clients were generally happy with the results. Zhao attributed the industry's success large amounts of organized personal data.
"We categorized the mobile users as sports fans, senior stock investors and entrepreneurs and so on," Zhao said.
He also revealed that the companies purchased personal information from gym clubs and real estate sales offices.
China plans to publish national standards for personal information protection in the first half of this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said.
In a bid to better target the audience and satisfy clients, the profitable advertising firms categorize mobile phone users by their financial statements, hobbies and consuming habits, then sell that data to advertisers.
The telecom operators were blamed for turning a blind eye to the practice because they raked in huge profits, China Economic Weekly said.
Because of the huge profits, the operators "were reluctant to filter the spam messages rather than they couldn't do so," an unnamed manager from China Mobile admitted to the magazine.
The operators offered bulk texting packages and charged 30,000 yuan (US$4,761) for sending 1 million messages. Despite the low price, they could earn tens of thousands of yuan from a deal, he said.
It was also a good price for the ad companies. They asked the clients to pay 50,000 yuan for 1 million advertising messages and thus gained the margin, Zhao Jian, a sales manager from an ad company revealed.
The clients were generally happy with the results. Zhao attributed the industry's success large amounts of organized personal data.
"We categorized the mobile users as sports fans, senior stock investors and entrepreneurs and so on," Zhao said.
He also revealed that the companies purchased personal information from gym clubs and real estate sales offices.
China plans to publish national standards for personal information protection in the first half of this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said.
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