Unlicensed email servers will be deemed illegal in China under new regulations.
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Source: AFP |
China has recently announced a new law that classifies running unlicensed email servers as illegal activity. In two weeks, when this law comes into effect, the majority of companies operating their own email servers in China will be in violation of the law.
According to market research firms, over 600,000 servers were sold in the Chinese market just last year. It is unclear how many of these are utilized for operating email server software like Outlook Server, Sendmail, Qmail, or Lotus Notes.
This email server licensing regulation is just a small part of the anti-spam law drafted by the Ministry of Information in China. It seems that the “bitter” impact of this law on corporate email servers (most companies with over 10 employees use these servers) has gone unnoticed by lawmakers.
Additionally, the new law prohibits using email to discuss certain sensitive topics. Emails containing content that violates existing laws cannot be copied or forwarded.
In recent years, spam has become a significant headache in China. Spam caused the country an estimated loss of at least $760 million (in terms of productivity) just last year, according to estimates by the China Internet Society. On the other hand, China is also one of the global sources of spam, as one-fifth of the world’s total spam is sent or forwarded through computers located in the country.
Under the new regulations, any organization or individual acting as an Email Service Provider (ESP) must have a license to use value-added telecommunications services. However, nonprofit organizations will be exempt from registration.
ESPs must register the IP addresses of their email servers with the authorities within 20 days of starting server operations. They are also required to maintain a record of all sent and received emails for 60 days.
Many techniques commonly used by spammers, such as attacking servers to use zombie computers as spam relay points, are also prohibited. Promotional emails must include a mandatory prefix of “Advertisement” or “AD” in the subject line and cannot be sent to users unless explicitly requested by them.
Tian Yi
