Title: The Chinese approach to spam regulation legislation

Authors: Qi Aimin; Chen Xing

Addresses: Law School, Chongqing University, No. 174 Shazhengjie, Shapingba, Chongqing, China ' Law School, Chongqing University, No. 174 Shazhengjie, Shapingba, Chongqing, China

Abstract: China, as one of the top ten sources of spam, has enacted the law, Measures for the Administration of Internet E-mail Services, which are administrative rules for spam regulation. This paper reviews the course of China's spam legislation, introduces and comments on the basic content of the Measures, and discusses the approach to improve China's anti-spam legislation in future combined with the basic theory of spam regulation. This paper analyses the conflict between the sender's freedom of speech and the recipient's privacy and personal information right and seeks the solution. This paper proposes that the implied deny regime, which is more in line with the Chinese needs of economic and society development, may be adopted in the future Chinese anti-spam legislation. Besides enacting a national specialised anti-spam law, China should endeavour to improve the legislation of privacy and information right, perfect the industry self-discipline norms and promote the anti-spam international legislation.

Keywords: spam regulation; spam legislation; administrative rules; privacy; personal information rights; freedom of speech; implied deny regime; industry self-discipline norms; competent authorities; legal responsibility; China; email spam.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIPM.2013.053450

International Journal of Intellectual Property Management, 2013 Vol.6 No.1/2, pp.79 - 94

Published online: 31 Mar 2014 *

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