Recently, the Inspectorate of the Ministry of Information and Communications revealed that several companies had been penalized for disseminating spam messages and making unsolicited marketing calls and texts to numbers registered on the National Do-Not-Call List.
Among these, SMBC was fined VND 160 million, while Suntech faced a penalty of VND 90 million. In addition to the monetary fines, both companies were ordered to suspend their services for two and three months, respectively, using specific identifiers associated with their advertising activities.
As part of their punishment, Suntech is required to halt advertising services using the identifiers ‘SUNTECH CO’ and ‘SUNTECH SER’ for two months. Meanwhile, SMBC will be unable to use ‘FE CREDIT’ and ‘FECREDIT’ for advertising purposes for three months, starting from September 20, 2024, and ending on December 20, 2024.
Prior to this, the Ministry had also revoked five identifiers from two separate entities: one named ‘FINANCE’ belonging to ITG and four identifiers—’HUYENTHUONG’, ‘TUAN TRUONG’, ‘DANGNGOCVY’, and ‘NGUYENKHANH’—associated with ITY.
These two advertising companies had their identifiers revoked due to violations of the government’s anti-spam regulations, specifically by sending messages and making calls to numbers on the Do-Not-Call List without prior consent.
Earlier in September 2024, the Authority of Information Security (AIS) also revoked six identifiers from two other advertising companies: ‘DVKH-247’, ‘CSKH-247’, ‘CSKH.24H’, ‘DVKH24H’, ‘PMCARD’, and ‘CTPMC’, belonging to ITS and Power Membership Card, respectively.
The recent penalties and identifier revocations resulted from investigations and evaluations conducted by AIS, following user reports in August 2024. During that month, AIS worked with 40 entities owning the reported identifiers, 32 of which admitted to violations and took steps to rectify their practices.
To protect telecommunications users and ensure compliance among advertising companies, AIS has intensified its efforts to educate individuals and organizations with assigned identifiers about their responsibilities as advertisers.
Moving forward, AIS intends to closely monitor the use of identifiers by individuals and organizations, working in tandem with the Inspectorate to impose strict penalties on those who violate regulations regarding spam messages and unsolicited calls, including misuse of identifiers for advertising purposes.
