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December 26, 2014

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ICBC told to pay for ad text messages

THE Pudong New Area People’s Court yesterday ordered the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to pay 1,000 yuan (US$161) as compensation to a man for repeatedly sending him commercial text messages.

The landmark ruling was the first of its kind against a bank, which was also asked to apologize to the plaintiff Liu Chunquan.

Liu, who is a lawyer, applied for a credit card to the bank in June 2011. Since then he has been bombarded with commercial messages, the court heard.

His repeated pleas to the bank to stop harassing him with the messages fell on deaf ears.

The bank told him to call the customer service hotline or complain to the branch where he applied for the card.

Liu called the hotline several times and was assured that the related departments would be notified accordingly.

But the spam messages did not stop, the court heard.

Liu then filed a lawsuit against ICBC, the world’s largest commercial bank, in July this year.

Liu told the court he had received over 30 text messages between February 2013 and June 2014.

Quoting the cyber security law, Liu said the bank cannot call or mail its customers without their approval, let alone sending them advertisements in text messages.

The bank argued that the credit card application states that customers will receive messages related to their cards.

But the court told the bank that by “messages related to the cards” it should mean that card holders will be notified about consumption, bank transfer and the charges or balance in card. Advertisements cannot be considered as part of the agreement.

The bank therefore infringed on the customer’s privacy by sending them commercial messages without their consent, the court said.

The court told the bank that it should offer customers the option of unsubscribing to the unwanted messages.

ICBC is the largest listed bank in the world by total assets and market capitalization. It is one of China’s “big four” state-owned commercial banks. The other three are the Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China, and China Construction Bank.




 

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